Total Loss

Well, last Sunday I hit a deer (with my car, silly).

This was not a good experience. My airbags deployed, but luckily I hit the brakes far enough in advance that I still had control over the car when I ceased to be able to see the road. Any safety system that is activated by small explosions less than a foot from your face is troubling, also, the car filling up with dusty smoke from said explosions, when it is also dark outside, is disorienting. Whoever invented this system made some odd choices.

Fortunately, neither I nor my two passengers were injured, though the doe was stone dead (and still under the car. I stepped on it at one point which was really, really gross).

So, we got out of the car (I sobbed for a while, then called my parents), called 911 (for the first time), and proceeded to wait. We were to call them roughly 7 more times that evening.

A very kind woman and her teenage daughter stopped to see if we were alright, and then stayed with us for the rest of the ordeal - she even drove us back to Hillsdale, which was easily 40 minutes out of her way. I am thankful for the kindness of 3d grade teachers.

We waited, and waited and waited. It began to rain.

A word of advice: don't get into an accident on rural roads, at night, give the police the wrong location the first time you call, during a shift change, on a road that is also a county line. However tempted you might be, just don't do it. Trust me.

When the deputy finally arrived he took care of things in a calm, orderly manner. Both he and the tow truck driver, a young fellow with the minimum of piercings, were the sole of decency.

As was the insurance adjustor who determined that my car was a total loss (a phrase I really don't like). Somehow, dealing with him was a calming experience, if only because he reminded me that I am not the only person to experience such a thing, he had been sent to three cars that day, all deer accidents, all totals.

So now, I am car-less, but intact, and with a slightly brighter picture of the bureaucracy. The system, once set in motion, took good care of me, and my parents are wonderfully forgiving people. Except for the horrible trauma of the accident, the nasty dead deer, the scary wait in the rain while my battery slowly died, and the hassle of being without vehicle for the first time in a year and a half, I might even be tempted say that I had a good time this weekend. But I won't say that. Because I didn't.

Let's never go through this again.