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Archive for October 17th, 2023

Diary #694

Posted in Diary, tagged , on October 17, 2023| Leave a Comment »

For the past few weeks, we’ve been playing musical cars.  It started on September 12th, when Grace got rear-ended in my trusty old Saturn a couple of miles from our house; luckily, she only had a few bumps and bruises, but that’s more than I can say for the car.  Chekhov & Yellowbird were visiting for dinner, so they let me borrow their van; based on past experience, I did not think it would take very long to settle the claim because the other driver was obviously at fault.  But it’s been eight years since somebody totaled one of my cars, and apparently things have changed since then; though the insurance company accepted liability within days, they couldn’t seem to get it through their skulls that it was absolutely, positively, and without any doubt totaled.  Then they didn’t want to actually send an adjuster out, instead sending me an email with a bewildering clusterfuck of instructions that took another week to sort out.  By this time my friends needed their van back for a trip, so they lent me Yellowbird’s little compact instead.  But it was very cramped for Grace and I was tired of the shenanigans, so I asked the insurance company for a rental.  That turned out to be a bad idea; they were happy to provide it, but only for ten days and I had to pick it up in Olympia, over an hour from here.  The car was a modern one with all kind of gizmos; it looked good and handled well on the open road, but when I got in traffic I discovered to my horror that its computer actually fought me for control, trying to trap me in traffic rather than letting me maneuver out of it.  After that experience I couldn’t be rid of it quickly enough, but that of course meant another trip to Olympia; fortunately I finally got the settlement check on Thursday, exactly a month after the accident.  Yesterday we met Chekhov to again trade the compact for the van, and later this week we plan to tow my old farm truck to the mechanic so I can at least get back and forth to the grocery while Grace tries to find me another dependable used car, which is more of a pain when one lives out in the boonies.  I’m glad this isn’t really going to cost me very much in money, but the cost in time and hassle has been onerous and I really hope I’m done with it before very much longer.

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