I bought my first car my sophomore year in college…. a used white VW rabbit. It lasted a couple years until it died on me in the middle of the rural Virginia mountains on my way back home for Christmas break.
I went on to buy my dads next 2 cars, both Ford Escorts. Reliable and safe.
Finally I had enough saved to buy my first brand new car a black Ford Explorer and then a beautiful blue Hyundai Santa Fe. While I would love to own a new car, I enjoy having no car payment anymore. I fully intended to keep my “blue baby” for as long as she would have me, but it wasn’t meant to be.
I’ll never forget it. It was a Monday early morning and I had planned to open the YMCA at 5am (which is very unusual for me) since we were jump starting a massive new event to get our members motivated and moving. Suffering with only 3-4 hours of sleep, I had a Mountain Dew in one hand and a hot chocolate in the other but ready to attack the day and week ahead.
About 45 minutes in, my high energy trainer arrives and asks if I was drunk and why I was parked sideways? She is a nut (in a nice way), so I brushed it off. Then after another half hour, my boss comes in and says I needed to follow him to the parking lot. Hmmmm. Well, my car had been hit by a big semi and pushed 2 full parking spots over so I was actually perpendicular to my colleagues’ cars. OMG.
Well the story gets better….. a member stops by our main desk and said she saw it go down AND that she had it on video (she was talking to a friend via FaceTime and flipped the camera when she heard a huge crash). We were able to make out the logo on the side of the truck and went into full CSI mode. The police wouldn’t come out to even do a report as it was a hit and run. WTF. So we researched the company and got a hold of their corporate offices in GA, and were able to identify the exact truck due to extra lights the driver had decked it out in. Simultaneously, my boss was out for lunch and saw a similar truck with blue paint all over it’s backside…. so we now had a license plate and through more websites we got the drivers name.
The driver gave me this massive sob story and how he didn’t want his insurance to take a hit. I just wanted to be whole again and get it fixed. We arranged to meet and he was a no show. So, no more Mrs. Nice gal. I called corporate again and they ended up suspending the driver until he got ahold of me to make things right.
After an estimate, it wasn’t worth it to get it fixed so I went on the hunt for a new wheels. I fell in love with my hunter green Jeep Cherokee and the rest is history. And the pay off check…… I used it for another vacation!
FearlessAdventures 