A crunched back end

Sunday began like any other day. I grabbed my keys and walked outside to my car. A Mazda hubcap glared at me from the sidewalk. I thought, is that hubcap mine? A quick once-over of the curb-side of the car revealed both hubcaps in place but as I rounded my car's rear left corner I was greeted with a vision no driver ever wants to see.

I walked to the front of the car to see if the offending driver left a note and sure enough, there were three slips of paper under my windshield wiper. One was from my neighbor, describing the accident and pointing out that the driver had hit her car too, which was parked behind mine. At first I thought we'd been victims of a hit-and-run, but she went on to say that a police officer and a tow truck had arrived and the driver had left his contact information. I looked at the other slips of paper - one was the business card of the police officer and the other had the driver's name, phone number, and "CALL ME PLEASE". For the sake of expediency, I'm going to call this driver "Bob".

I saw our neighbor (I'll call her "Jill") later that day and she explained what happened, or at least Bob's version of events. Bob said he thought he saw something run out from between the cars, was startled and swerved. How he managed to hit BOTH rear left corners of our cars, while leaving the first car's front left corner untouched, is truly beyond me but it somehow happened.

You can see how our cars were parked prior to the accident - Jill's car was behind mine. You'd think that the force of the impact to her car would send her front end into my car?

Jill's car didn't fare as well as mine, unfortunately. It's an older car and she thinks it's totaled - the axle is broken. Anyway, you'd think the impact would've pushed her car into mine...

But her front end is completely fine. Which means Bob must've swerved in and hit Jill's car, swerved out, then swerved in and hit mine.

Isn't that just so strange? I think that would be hard to accomplish even if you were deliberately trying. So right now our cars are the obligatory eyesores on the street until Bob's insurance company gets their rear in gear and accepts responsibility. And I'm stuck on the bus.