Murphy’s Law
Posted on August 28, 2015 by Ching under Life, Things to Do.
Figures. I finally pay off my car and I mess it up. In my defense, it wasn’t my fault. It was because of the poorly finished parking lot at the Hill.
The parking stalls right next to the restaurant have these cement parking blocks. Most of them have been properly constructed/finished except for a couple that still have rebar sticking up out of them.
There’s one in a handicapped parking stall. The other is in the very first parking stall, which is the one that snagged my car.
I was paying attention to Brian’s car that was already parked and I was just relieved to find a parking spot right by the entrance so I didn’t notice the rebar. Plus, it wasn’t really noticeable. I mean, who leaves rebar sticking out of a parking block like that?
I didn’t want people who were pulling into the tight parking lot to hit the back bumper of my car so I pulled in all the way. Normally I have no problem clearing those concrete parking blocks so I typically pull in all the way until I feel the block against my front tires. Anyway, the front fender has some give so I didn’t feel the rebar going in. I didn’t realize what had happened until I was pulling out of the parking spot after lunch and I heard a crunching sound.
I called Brian who was taking grandma home first. I told him to please check my car when he got home because I thought I messed up my front bumper. I was hoping for the best but prepared for the worst, which is sadly the case. Brian confirmed it as soon he got home and was able to inspect the car. I messed up the clips so the front bumper needs to be replaced in order to get Alex back to normal.
Half a dozen quotes later from various body shops around town, we found out that it’s going to cost at least $1,000 to effectively fix the damage. Cheapest quote was Auto Paint Repair at $855. The most expensive quote was $1140 from Carstar. I initially wanted to go with the lowest price because I didn’t want to file an insurance claim and risk losing my good driver discount; however, Brian really had his heart set on Carstar. They fixed Bebot after our rear-end collision last year and they did a really good job.
Twelve hundred dollars is a lot of money so I decided to sleep on it. A friend at work (Derek) told me that the front end doesn’t look too bad so I could probably wait to get it fixed. It’s just that I’m afraid to wash the car or nudge the front bumper in some way because I don’t want the bumper to fall off or worsen the damage. Lately we’ve been trying to drive around in Bebot more and not use Alex as much so we don’t make things worse, except on days when we’re both working because then I don’t have a choice but to drive Alex.
I’ll eventually need to get Alex fixed but hopefully I can postpone it long enough to where I have enough money saved up so I won’t have to settle for the least expensive quote and I can get it done by Carstar (Brian’s first choice). Getting Alex fixed may just have to be my birthday present this year. Sigh.
If you have some spare change and would like to donate to the Alex repair fund, clickity click the donate button on the right. Thanks in advance for your generous donation. I really appreciate it.
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