Black Ops

Wednesday afternoon we had mist that froze all over everything.  Road conditions in town weren't too bad, but on the lesser traveled roads it was really slick.  Really slick, so slick in fact that I managed to total my mothers little Camry by taking out 6 mailboxes when the car did a 180 rather than slow down so I could make the 90 degree turn necessary to turn onto our street ...  

I hit the mail boxes perfectly ...

• perfectly to shatter the driver side window, when the far right mail box (in the above picture it's in front of the others sitting on the ground on the right) hit the top rim of the window, rather than have the mailbox come through the window and into the car/my face ... 
• perfectly enough to allow me to drive the car home with no problems ... 
• perfectly to take out the posts swiftly and completely -- had they not been there, the car would have likely gone on it's side or upside down given the grade of the ditch ... 
• perfectly enough that (as far as I know) only my mail got laid out for the night ...
• perfectly make the car a total loss because of how perfectly I hit the posts, rough estimates for repair are $3-4,000 ...  it's a 92.  
• so perfectly that I am not scratched, bruised or sore.  

 

Thursday morning GR purchased supplies to fix the mailbox posts and Bob and a neighbor had them up right again before lunch and mail delivery.  Amazingly, none of the mailboxes were damaged, not even a dent.  They hadn't been so lucky 2 years ago when a DUI took out all the boxes and ended up all the way in the ditch.  

Unfortunately, Mom and Dad value this car more than their insurance company does.  It's a sound little car whose transmission is doing great and isn't showing any signs of dying soon.  So rather than ditch it for something else, they will likely replace the door with something from a salvage yard and continue to drive it until the transmission has issues.  In the meantime we're investing in gloves, plastic and duck tape for the drive home.