You know that question. THAT question. Thatquestion. The question that always pops up when you get friends together and maybe there’s some drinking. Yeah, that one. “What would you do if a whole slew of concrete saw blades comes spewing off a truck and rolls down the hill at your car?” Well, now I can answer that age-old conundrum. (Did you think you’d see the word “conundrum” today? Well there it is.) Mostly what I did was go “G’neeeeeee!” and wait for it to hit me.
See, here’s the deal. I just got finished with the grocery shopping (they’ve moved the Boboli pizza crusts, by the way) and was on the way to Mom’s house to borrow her electric skillet. The light turns yellow, and I’m pretty far back, so , oddly, I decide not to run it and stop like a Good Citizen. (Don’t ever do this, be a Good Citizen. Good Citizens are chumps.) Around the corner comes a construction truck (they are concrete construction specialists, oh how I wish they were Styrofoam construction specialists) and off the back spew, what seemed like at the time, 10,000 foot and a half high metal disks. (But as it turned out, it was only about 7 or so.) “What are these foot and a half high metal disks rolling through the road?” I ask myself. Most of them fall over pretty quickly. But not all of them. Four of them wobble a little before they look down the street and say “Ah ha! Cars!” and right themselves and zoom at us.
One of them smacks me in the front bumper and three others go for the pick-up truck next to me. “What the Hell are those things?” I ask. Then I notice the construction truck. It has “Concrete Construction” on it’s side and one of those huge concrete saws (that would be a huge saw for concrete, not a huge saw made out of concrete, just so you’re sure about things) on the back. “Oh. Great.” So I get out and see what’s what.
I had this four inch gash in my bumper. Nothing else is hurt, so it could be worse. The guy next to me got some big ol’ dents in his bumper. (He had a shiny chrome metal bumper on his truck, I have a plastic one on my Honda.) So the construction guy gives us his card with his insurance guy’s name and number on the back and says “this guy’ll take care of y’all.”
So I get home and call and they tell me to get an estimate at “the shop”. So I call “the shop” and they say I can just bring my car in and they’ll estimate me in about five minutes. Maybe ten. Just stop on in. Only not on the weekend, because they’re closed. And not in the evening, because they are closed then too. So I was going to go get estimated after I picked up Soupo from school. This would have worked pretty well, only Katcha decided it would be a good day to throw a screaming fit all afternoon. So I didn’t get there Friday. I went this morning instead.
They opened at 7:30, and I had to drop Soupo off at school, so I didn’t get there until 8:55. This was ten minutes before the estimator got in. Good thing I didn’t show up right when they opened. But it only took about 10 minutes once she got there. (She was about 12 years old, and Katcha and I entertained ourselves playing with the water fountain and looking at the cars parked in the waiting room.) So now their insurance guy has the estimate. (Parts, body labor, paint labor, paint supplies, sublet/mic. (?), tax and gratuity = $464.44) We’ll see what happens next.
And you know that other question that pops up from time to time? “What’s the worst part of your lawn mower to break on a Saturday afternoon?” That would be the “lower handle”. (Part # 749-1093 which is now part # 749-1093A-0637, but it’s not in stock.) When your “lower handle” breaks you find out two things.
- There are 5 lawn mower repair places near you.
and - They are all closed by noon on Saturday.
So I gave them a call this morning. Right after I got back from getting estimated.
The first place told me “This is a very common thing to happen. We see it a lot.” So you have the part to fix it? “No. But we’ll weld it for you.”
The next place told me the part has a new number, but he didn’t have one. He’ll order it for me though. It’ll be in in about a week.
The next place didn’t answer their phone.
The next place said “Huh?” when I asked for my part.
The last place might have the part in stock. They’re looking for it now. (As of 10:30 or so.) They’ll let me know in a “few minutes”. (Still no word.)
But the beignets turned out pretty well on Sunday. The electric skillet is really the way to go there.
-Rue.
