A Banner Weekend

I watched a few movies since my last abbreviated post, including Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion which I figured would be a good one, and a Japanese copy of The Bourne Identity. Maybe I'll discuss these movies in a later post, but this is more a post about my killer weekend.

Ali's best friend from highschool had planned to visit from Osaka on a 4-day vacation and so I cheerfully volunteered to collect Julie from from the airport and that's when everything went Pete Tong. The main artery between the downtown core and the airport is notoriously congested due to the excessive number of stoplights, or is it the lack of turn lanes? Either way, traffic in this street is always an adventure.

Julie's not even in the country for an hour before she gets a faceful of GMC Sierra - sans airbag. Three cars in front of me decided to inexplicably stop short in the centre lane. I was checking my mirrors and missed the GMC's brake lights. Julie started shrieking something in Japanese which was my cue to slam on the brakes. Well, I didn't have enough room to stop, and shunted the GMC up front into the second car in the queue, which then shunted the first car in the queue. Julie and Ali were okay, I was okay, the driver in front of me was okay so we pulled over to exchange information. This was my first accident, and I wasn't exactly sure what I was supposed to do. Thankfully, the driver in front of me walked me through everything. The other two drivers were fine as well, but my nerves were shot - especially since Julie's vacation, and Baby's front were now ruined.

I was able to continue the journey in the Jeep which was a good sign, leaving bits of headlight and halogen lamp all along the route. Apparently this is acceptable, which I'm glad for. Ali made me a nice cup of tea to help me relax, and Julie regaled me with gifts which, since I had already lost so much face, I accepted. The rest of the day was kinda weird. I felt really bad about being able to walk around town after what had happened. That was Saturday morning - Saturday afternoon I was accused of being a purse snatcher, but before all that escalated, Ali sorted it. I went to sleep Saturday night dreading that I might wake up with a stiff back from the accident, but surprisingly neither I, nor Ali nor Julie had any problems. Sunday was karma I guess because a bird shit on me, but thanks to my bucket hat, there was minimal collateral damage. Julie and Ali were able to have their vacation together which was important, and I was left to deal with the insurance company.

I took the day off work today to take the Jeep into the inspection garage, and they told me it would cost about $5000.00 to fix, and that the damage was purely cosmetic. I'm glad about that, and I'm also very happy that none of the other drivers have filed injury claims. I'm most worried about the driver in front of me due to his age and his size but he said he was okay. The whole insurance claim process has been quite painless so far, I watched Spain score a penalty kick against Tunisia as I sipped a coffee and an information officer told me what to expect next. It was all quite reassuring.

The insurance company told me that the work should take 7 working days, but the body shop told me that Baby wouldn't be better until the end of next week. So until then, I have an automatic transmission Toyota Corolla at my disposal in case I have to run errands. Either way, it could be worse and I'm glad its not.