I was just gently violated by my exams yesterday, only to have a slightly more inconvenient day today. Since I’m going to be telling this story to about a dozen people sooner or later, I might as well tell it here.

The day begun with me wasting three hours trying to make my laptops display 1080p resolution onto the new TV, only to learn that they can’t display wide screen to an external source (I still don’t know why made it work!). Both showers were broken and the TV lacked component cables, so I had to drive down to Plumbing Mart and BestBuy today (the only day I have access to the car). By the time I was done wasting time with the laptops, I realized it was almost rush hour and rushed off to the car. Once I got down to the car I was faced with a small dilemma: I forgot my keys, so I can’t get into the car, and I forgot my keys, so I can’t get back into the building. With more time wasted, I was officially in rush hour, heading down Dundas and looking for a tiny outlet store without any luck. What should have been a 10 minute drive to Plumbing Mart, turned out to be a 40 minute escapade of going back and forth on Dundas with thousands of other angry cars. After buying a “crane” and a “shower inverter”, I headed off to BestBuy.

I was driving south on Dixie Rd., approaching the intersection to Queensway E. (here). I needed to make a left turn on Queensway and the turn arrow for the intersection was blinking, but the car in front of me didn’t quite leave me enough room to change into the turning lane. I was already half way into the turning lane, and saw that the car in front of me (a black 4×4 Jeep Liberty, 2003) had literally two cars worth of space in front of it. Naturally, I honked a “could you move up?” at the driver. He started moving forward, so I started switching into the left lane… but he stopped. I didn’t see that he stopped, so my only indication was the noise of my right side mirror getting wedged between his car. I stopped immediately.

Okay, so it’s my first accident. I got out of the car and went up to his window to see if he was alright, but he was PISSED (and really stubborn). He kept accusing me of crashing into his car (he must have had some sort of higher education, because I have no idea how he gathered THAT </sarcasm>), and then completely ignored my apologies and attempts to cooperate, as fumed with his wife. Just to paint the scene a little, this was a Caucasian male (with a French surname) in his 50’s, with a woman that I gathered to be his wife. He kept threatening to go to the insurance and that it’s a brand new car, with chrome wheels, it’s going to be very expensive and he had to go through insurance because it was a rental. Later I asked what company it was rented from, and he said “no no, it’s not a rental, I own this vehicle.” Then he started making other things up, like some scratch on his door was also from the accident (even though there’s absolutely no way my car could have reached his door, even if it had arms.)

Anyways, long story short: A cop arrived, took both of our statements, wrote down our registration and driver’s license information, then we exchanged each other’s information, the cop said “there’s no point in reporting this to insurance because this is a minor incident and definitely less than $1000.” The only damage for his car (that was obviously made by mine) was a gray scratch on his back wheel bumper (them Jeeps have wheel bumpers…). In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if his car was perfectly fine once the gray paint (which came from my car) is cleaned off. Measly old Honda Civic doesn’t stand a chance to his fancy black Jeep with chrome wheels. Seriously… chrome wheels? What’s up with that?

Oh, and to top it off, when he tried to move his car, it completely ripped off my side view mirror (which was only dislocated before). Too bad it was dark and can’t see anything in my cellphone photos.

Now I’m waiting for him to get an estimate from his dealership and to call me back. Sigh. I hope my insurance rates don’t get gently violated, too.