Update # 1

Remember this post I did about scratching my rental car? Well, I'm starting to think maybe I DO have a fairy that snuck into Enterprise late at night and shredded the accident report. You know, the Blue Shredder Fairy. Because so far Enterprise hasn't called me. It's been almost 2 1/2 weeks. Do I dare breathe a sigh of relief yet? I'm sure at least legally I could be out of the woods. They have for sure rented that car since then. And there is no way they can try to hold me responsible for damages once other people have driven that car. It's completely possible that other drivers could have done some additional damage since then. No one took pictures. I know I could no longer say for sure exactly which scratches were made by me. How could they? Not that I'm trying to get out of it. I'm just saying. It doesn't seem right to let other people drive the car without fixing it first or at least having an insurance adjuster make a claim on it. What do you think? Should I start spending the money I put aside to pay for the repair?

Crappity Crap Crap! The Third Installment

A few of you asked what happened when I returned my scratched up rental car. And I flatter myself to think that you actually care enough for me to do a post about it. Here goes...It's pretty anti-climactic. Sorry.

I decided to play the honesty card. The "I'm a total idiot and please take pity on me" card. Fortunately, the girl who helped me was very nice and not very shocked about it. UNfortunately, the girl who helped me was not the manager who was so indebted to me for his company's many issues on my previous visit. He was not there. The girl said she would make an accident report and someone from Enterprise would call me. That was 6 days ago, and nothing yet. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that no one will ever call. I'm hoping maybe a little fairy came in that night when no one was there and shredded the accident report. Or maybe the manager came in on Monday and felt so bad for me that HE shredded the accident report. Or maybe, just maybe, someone took the car out later that day and totalled it. In which case, they wouldn't charge me for a few scratches, right? One can dream.

Crapity Crap Crap! Part Deux

You guys are not freaking going to believe this. You're not. You're going to drop whatever you are holding and scream to the heavens, How can this happen to one poor woman??? At least that's what you should do.

So, you will remember that I backed my car into another car and dented the bumper. And you'll remember that I got a crappy mini-van as a rental. Well, since then, I upgraded my mini-van to a nicer one that didn't reek of cigarette smoke. It also had the doors that open from the remote, and a bunch of cool storage compartments on the ceiling. And his & hers temperature controls. It was way nicer. Almost fun to drive in. Here it is:





Well, the manager at Enterprise felt so bad that I had to bring it in due to the smell. And he felt even worse that when I came in 1/2 hour later than they told me the new car would be ready, it still wasn't ready. And he felt terrible that he was the only one there that day so it took him an hour to get my new car prepped for me. He swore he'd make it up to me when I brought the car back in to pay for it. Well, I am probably going to have to call on his huge sense of guilt because....

I backed the rental car into my fence and scraped up the bumper.




AGH!!!! I am not even close to kidding. Yesterday I pulled the sliding gate closed across my driveway (chain link) so that my kids could play safely in the yard. And then later I had to go to pick up my babysitter so that I could go to the doctor. As I was getting in the car I thought to myself, "Don't forget to move the gate back." And then I started putting my kids in their carseats. And Daphne FREAKED OUT because she wanted to ride in the backseat, not in her car seat. And I had to wrestle her to get in her seat and buckle it up. And then she was screaming and thrashing as I got into my seat and started to back up. So I was totally distracted. Also, my car that is being fixed has back-up sensors that beep if you get close to anything. So I'm kind of handicapped by expecting those beeps anytime I back up. It has made me careless about looking behind me (as is evidenced by my recent backing up snafu). Suddenly, CRUNCH! I hit the sliding gate so hard that it swung open like a swinging gate. So I got out and swung it back, but then I couldn't get it to slide anymore. It was thrown from the track and the bar it slides on was bent. Of course my neighbors were in the yard at the time, adding to my humiliation, and offered to come over and help. That's when I noticed all the damage to the rear bumper. I hadn't thought backing up at 2 miles/hour could do damage to my bumper. But, clearly, it can.

Words cannot describe the chagrin I felt at that moment. The humiliation, the terror, the regret. I cannot BELIEVE that I just did the almost exact same thing that put me in this rental in the first place!!! ARG!!! So now I have to return my rental today and bat my eyelashes and hope that the Enterprise manager is on shift and that he remembers how he felt so bad yesterday when he switched out my car. Should I just hope he doesn't check the car for damage? Should I come in and tell him what happened right off the bat and beg for mercy? Should I say that I have no idea how it happened or pretend I didn't know it was there? No. I'll be honest. Because I need GOD on my side. I need direct divine intervention. But still. It's going to be horrible when I show them the car. Horrible horrible horrible.

And it's going to cost me a lot of money. Or another big deductible and jacked up insurance rates. I'm sure my insurance agent is going to love to hear how I backed up and crashed twice in one month. The weird thing is, I've never been responsible for an accident or car damage ever. All the accidents and fender benders I've been in have been someone else's fault. And then it's my fault twice in one month. What is going on???

The only thing I can think of to explain it is that the back up sensors are to blame. They've crippled me! Made me lazy. I think I need to sue Subaru.

The one good thing to come out of this is that my husband proved what an incredible man he is. My hero. Not only did he not yell at me when I told him, and not only was he very conciliatory when I started bawling, he brought me this when he came home from work:

My knight in shining armor.

Ok. Now I'm babbling. Babbling because I'm stalling. Stalling because in a few hours I will have to take back the rental car and I have no idea how to do what I have to do.

I've become a car snob. There, I said it.

Check out my sweet new ride (note sarcasm). IT'S TEMPORARY! JUST FOR A FEW DAYS! (Panting, hyperventilating). See, I had to take my car in to get it repaired after this happened. And I had to rent a car so as not to be completely stranded while the collision shop takes FOUR DAYS to repair a frisbee sized dent. I called Enterprise because they said they would pick me up, and they did. They sent the most idiotic, uninformed kid they could find to pick me up. I asked him several basic questions like, "Is this the car I'm taking? Because they said they'd pick me up in the car I'm taking," and "Do you have the paperwork with you?" and "Can I return this to the branch in my town?" none of which he knew the answer to. He did know that his name was Mike. Daphne asked him...and then proceeded to call him Megan for the next 20 minutes. Soon Beck was hollaring "Megan! Megan!" too. That part was actually kind of funny. Anyway, they sent Megan Mike to pick me up in the most pared down, ghetto poor, base model of a minivan you've ever seen. I wasn't worried at first because I had ordered a midsize sedan, like 6 downgrades away from a minivan. They told me it would be something like a G6, whatever that is, or a Jetta, which sounded good to me. Even if I did have to wedge two car seats and all my kids' crap into the back of a Jetta, at least I would be able to hold my head up for the next few days. But when I got to the Enterprise office, the frozen-frosting-smile associate informed me that they had upgraded me to the minivan! Yeah! (note sarcasm again). I smiled a frozen frosting smile back because I was too close to crying to inform her that I was not yet ready to trade away the last ounce of coolness and dignity I had left as a mother of two for three extra seats. (No offense to all you wonderful women who have already traded away your last ounce of coolness and dignity for three extra seats--I know sometimes it's got to be done. Hmmm....I can feel the hate mail being written as we speak.) And the worst part is, it's not even a tricked out, blinged out, Mommy fantasy minivan. The doors have to be PULLED open and shut! The seats are made of some kind of food-magnet cloth. There's no sun roof. No shades to pull down on the sides of the back seats, no cup holders suspended from the ceiling on invisible wires, no surround sound, hi-def, 25" screens on the back of every seat, no rotating tray of hors d'ouvres in the floor, no talking computer to drive the car for me while I take a nap. Nothing to help me look down my nose at the people who were trying to look down their nose at me. Nothing to help me know that while they may think me uncool, I was able to pull a 6" thick soundproof barrier down between me and the backseat (they make those in minivans now, right?) Just a dark blue minivan of shame to drive around in. With a Dodge symbol on the back. WAAAAHHH! I want my snooty-hippy, downtown-loving, dangerously-close-to-but-not-quite-a-minivan Tribecca back!