Day One

What better title than "Day One" to describe my first blog post. Who knows how long this will last or how often I will actually blog, but I figure, why not give this a shot. I was excited to start the blog, because quite a few friends of mine have a blog, but was shocked to see the limited selection that Google has for blog templates. Personally, I am not a fan of the template that I selected, but I think it is a matter of choosing the lesser evils.

Speaking of lesser evils, I am pondering the recent car accident that my car was involved in. I have owned my car since I graduated from college (back in 2000). My car has been with me through a lot and I try to take the best care of it, so whenever something happens to it, it is difficult for me to deal with. Well, with that said, let me describe what happened this past weekend. I parked on the street in front of my house and sometime on Saturday morning, my next door neighbor's brother, who apparently is now staying with my neighbor while he and his wife go house hunting (yeah, good luck with that), backed out of the drive way and hit the front corner of the my car. Upon hitting my car, to my understanding, he told his wife to go to our house and tell us that he hit me, but he had to run to work. His wife said that it was too early to knock on my door and that they would tell me later. It is still unclear why they didn't leave a note on my car to tell me, but such as life. Needless to say, when I went outside on Saturday, I saw what appeared to be a red taillight that was cracked by the front of my car. Therefore, I became suspicious and checked the corner and then I saw the damage: my front bumper and side fender was scraped, and the headlight was cracked. After about 10 minutes of Kara and I looking around to see what had happened, the neighbor's brother's wife ran outside in her pajamas to let us know that her husband hit my car. After talking to her, she called her husband who then spoke to me via cell phone and apologized for hitting my car. (I do have to admit, if there ever were a person that I would want to hit my car, it would be him, because he has been so nice and friendly about the matter. With that said, I NEVER want anyone to hit my car, so that is not an invite.) He wanted to settle this without going through insurance, so I said on Monday, I would go to the body shop and get an estimate and we could settle it then. So on Monday, I went to two different body shops and the result was the same. In addition to the damage I listed above, the insight radiator support was cracked, so the estimated damage was approximately $1,800. When I communicated that to the neighbor's brother, he informed me that he was only willing and able to pay $1,500 to repair my car, without going through insurance, so he said that he would file a claim with his insurance. This is the where the lesser of the two evils comes in. I am truly wondering, would I have been better off just accepting the $1,500 from him in cash and paying the difference out of pocket or am I better off going through his insurance. At this point, it is too late, and we are going through his insurance. However, as this situation continues to unfold, I truly question whether I made the right decision. The insurance company is disregarding the estimates I received and assigned my case to a body shop in Lorton! That is only a 30+ minute drive away, without traffic! So I called the insurance company, who apologized and said they would try to find someone closer. Oh the joys!