CRASH
Today sucked. Really, really, really sucked. While driving into work, i got into an auto accident. I'm coming down the Montegue Expressway, just past the I880 interchange, and this person in a Pontiac cuts across all 3 lanes, into my lane, and then slams on the breaks. So I slammed on my breaks, and skidded to a stop about 18 inches away from hitting him. Unfortunately, I wasn't as lucky, as the guy in the Ford Explorer behind me rear-ended me, and pushed me into the Pontiac. Somehow, through the perverse laws of physics, my front end was trashed (the front hood was tented), yet my rear end had barely a scratch on it. Then the guy in the Pontiac drove off. So i'm stuck with the guy who hit me, who was annoyed that I insisted on calling the cops to file a report. We sat for nearly a half hour before a CHP officer on a motorcycle arrived. So I tell my side of the story, the cop looks at my car, and for some reason just assumed that I had rear-ended the SUV, because I had virtually no rear damage. I kept trying to convince him that I didn't, but I don't know how much he believed me. So then he turned to the other guy who couldn't speak or understand English very well at all, and basically got no information out of the guy. The guy did kind of acknowledge that there was a car stopped in front of me when everything happened, but beyond that it was a waste. After that, the officer is getting ready to leave and I ask him if he has rope or something to tie down the hood of my car so that it would be drivable, and of course he has nothing. So I'm basically stranded. Across the street is a gas station, so I walk over there, and they have nothing. At that point, I figured I'd try to drive the remaining 2 miles to work. Thankfully the hood of my car actually has a small gap, when upright, such that I can see the road directly infront of me. So I drove, with my 4-way flashers, at about 20MPH the rest of the way. All through this fiasco its pouring rain. Thankfully a kind soul at work gave me some bungy cord which I used to tie down the hood of my car. During the day I went through the hassle of calling in a claim with the insurance, and Denise helped in getting the rental car, and scheduling an appt for the autobody shop for Friday afternoon. So, I'm driving home this evening, and I'm less than a mile from work, and the bungy cord snaps, and the hood pops back up. I thought that I was completely screwed, because I can't see all that well with the hood up, and certainly can't drive fast as a result. So I'm limping down the Montague expressway again, and this random guy on a motorcycle pulls up beside me and offers me some more bungie cord. This anonymous stranger is my hero for the day. Thanks to him I was able to drive the rest of the way home at around 40MPH instead of 20MPH (plus who knows whether a cop would have pulled me over for driving with the hood up). So we've got this craptastic PoS Nissan Sentra rental car that has over 40k miles on it, makes scary squeaking noises, and is really clunky. Basically its everything that I hate about asian cars, plus is run down all to hell cause its a rental. I'm exhausted, and slightly achy. This week has to get better from here, right? right??