April15

I Wreck My Car

Back in High School, Todd and I used to do prank phone calls (scandalous, I know), and one of the meanest ones we did was call a tow truck service and pretend that we had wrecked a car. It was well past midnight and we went to see if the dude would show up. Of course, he did, why wouldn’t he?

The whole prank revolved around the line, “I wreck my car,” said with a foreign accent.

Yesterday, on the way back from Fayetteville and fresh off of scouting for campsites, I had to call a towing service and say that I had wrecked my car. It wasn’t a good feeling.

I was traveling up highway 39 in Missouri and was constantly checking a map to make sure that I was on course. Sure enough, I was, until my car swerved a bit to the right and hit a creek bridge. My front passenger tire was instantly flat and I swerved back onto the road. I didn’t slam on my brakes, instead I just let off the gas and fought to keep control of the car. About 75-100 feet later, I pulled the car over and nearly had a panic attack.

Upon inspection, I had actually busted my front passenger wheel. Busted. The tire had no chance. My passenger side view mirror was gone. The passenger doors and windows were scraped. My rear passenger tire was flat. And there was some damage to the front bumper. And that’s just what I can see, who knows what’s going on under the car.

I called my insurance and got their assistance on what I should do next. That’s when we called Phillips Towing out of Nevada, Missouri. While I was waiting on my tow, I walked around and inspected the scene. I tried to find parts of my side view mirror, but there were surprisingly very few to find – until I looked up in a tree (15 feet off the road and behind the accident) and found a large portion of the mirror casing.

About 45 minutes later, who I assumed was, Philliip arrived. We loaded up the car and started the 45 mile drive back to Nevada. About 10 miles into the trip, Phillip gets a phone call from someone who had locked their keys in their car. We were only two miles away, so we veered off course to help.

We finally got to the tow yard and dropped my car off. Thankfully, Bruno came down and picked me up to take me back to Kansas City. I grabbed all the stuff I needed out of the car and we were off. He dropped me off at home and planned on picking me back up soon to go to Aaron’s 30th birthday celebration.

I was about to check my mail when I realized that I had left my keys in my car. The bad day had just gotten worse.

An hour later, my landlord let me in and I gave up on the evening. It was literally one of the worst days of my life. But there’s a bright side – and it’s a humbling one – all of the people that helped me yesterday were great. From all the phone calls, text messages, tows, rides, offered places to stay, etc., I wouldn’t be sitting in my place right now telling this sad story, if it weren’t for them.

Thank you to everyone who helped me out yesterday, even if it was just an encouraging message on the phone. It did wonders.

I took as many photos as I could from my camera phone (they turned out nicely). I must say that looking back at the photos now, it doesn’t look like it was a very scary, or serious, ordeal. But when I was looking over that creek and thinking that I could’ve flown into a tree, or worse... then yeah, that was scary.

Anyway, so yesterday, “I wreck my car,” and I’ve never been so thankful that I’m okay.

+ original post date: April 15, 2007 12:39 PM
+ categories: Automobile, Family/Friends, I'm An Idiot, KC