A Car Accident, Neil Patrick Harris and a Seatless Van

I never got around to blogging about this, but last week, some ding-dong man rear-ended me while I was about to pick up one of my clients. I did absolutely nothing wrong, too. I was turning left into my client's neighborhood, and while waiting for oncoming traffic to pass so I could turn, I watched the whole thing happen in my rear-view mirror. Plus I think the sound of car accident is just nauseating and creepy at the same time. So as I am hearing and watching this man slam into the back of my car, I didn't even get a chance to panic before SMASH. Luckily, he admitted fault and apologized, and the damage wasn't severe. I claimed it, and am now going through the process of having my bumper replaced. All I can say, is praise the Lord it wasn't 5 minutes later, or my client would have been in the car, and that would have been a nightmare of paperwork and issues to mess with.

Monday, I took my banged up car to the body shop for the estimate. A nice, man - with braces - greeted me and I had to show him the damage and the whole deal. He was super professional and friendly, and actually looked just like a slinky version of Neil Patrick Harris. The first time he flashed those braces, it threw me off guard! Maybe because it's not as common to see adults with braces? I dunno, I think it's just because it's hard to picture Neil Patrick with braces.. Regardless, why am I talking about Doogie Howser and braces?

Today, I headed back to the shop to drop off my car and pick up my rental - since I it's going to be a 2-day job with bumper replacement and everything. I walk in. Why, hello there, Doogie with braces! He kept talking to me like I knew what was going on, but I have never been in an accident before (I'm so fortunate it wasn't my fault and it wasn't severe damage!). He took my car key and told me I was "good to go!" and that "someone should be around to take me to my rental". I was confused, but of course my goal was to just go along like I knew what was going on. I stood there for a minute before I finally asked him, "Uhh.. wait, what? Where's the rental? What am I supposed to do?" and of course I had to remind him that "I have never done this before, so..um.." He looked at me kinda funny, but then explained that a driver is going to be taking me to Enterprise (a few miles away) and I would get my rental there. OK! There was another woman in the lobby. As I watched her head outside and get in the passanger seat of this minivan parked out front, Doogie tells me that I need to go with them. Uhhm, Ok. I think I even remember thinking to myself that I'll probably be blogging about this later. Well, here's what happened next:

I walked out to the van, and there was a nice man/driver who was by the sliding van door, waiting for me to get in. As I was walking toward the van, I could clearly see that the seat had been taken out, but I assumed that there had to be a seat maybe toward the back of the van that I would be sitting in. Within the same second that I climbed in, I saw it - no seat. So what do I do? Something my mom would have done. I just sat down Indian-style on the carpet in far back of this van and smiled cheesy-big at the driver who was staring at me in disbelief. He was probably wondering why I was just sitting there like a little kid in Kindergarten, waiting for snacktime. Well, I was thinking "HOW could this man NOT know that there were no seats in the back of his van, if his job is to pick people up from locations and take them to the rental place he was hired by?? I wasn't going to question him! I was trying to be "cool" and act like I knew what I was doing, but ended up looking like a FOOL! He laughed and told me to get out, which then I felt guilty for being so willing to ride in the back of a chauffeured vehicle with no seatbelt or safety whatsoever. Before I got out, I even offered, "I can just hold on to something! I'll be fine!" What is wrong with me?!

Trying to hide my embarassmant, I clumsily exit the seatless van as driver-man and passanger-seat lady watch my every move. What is this?! I think they were waiting for me to do something else humiliating so they could go home and tell their friends my embarassing story. The guy told me he would "come back in 20 minutes" after he dropped off passanger-seat lady. I ended up being driven over to Enterprise by one of the body shop guys who was extremely akward and had such bad skin, I could cry for him. It was nice of him to try to make conversation with me, although he was so akward and uncomfortable. Poor guy! I almost suggested a really good face wash for him, but that would have only made our akward trip 10x more akward.

Well, that's all. I'll have to post what embarassing things happen when I go back to the shop in 2 days to pick up my fixed car. Ohh, can't wait.

xo