Entering the Labyrinth

This morning I drove Nuria to the Battlefield Park Auto Salvage company to visit with her Camry. She told me she wanted to get some things out of the car before something happened to them. She named the items she wanted to retrieve, and when she said "my parents' rosary beads" it almost went by me, but then a part of my brain said, "uh, what? Rosary beads? In your Camry?"

I had thought her walking away unhurt from that collision was exceptionally good fortune, but maybe there was something else, too. Maybe there was something in the car that protected Nuria. Maybe. I can believe that.

Also in the car was a well-worn coin purse filled with quarters. I thought that was a good idea—for toll booths and parking meters, a coin purse filled with quarters in a handy place where she could easily reach it. Though more and more toll booths take credit cards.

She took the floor mats and the windshield sun shade that she had bought for the car. She took it all and bid farewell to the Camry. 

The gal behind the front desk of the salvage yard said that if they could station a tow truck at Walmart, it would be busy all day towing cars from accidents. A woman sitting near the shop's front door told me her car was hit by a truck entering the Walmart parking lot as she was trying to exit. She could see the collision coming and began backing up to avoid the truck, but a vehicle behind her prevented her from backing up enough, and the truck scraped her car. The truck driver should have stopped but didn't seem to care. He told the investigating officer that the accident was the woman's fault—that she had hit him. The cop knew the truck driver, and so the cop wrote the accident report as being the woman's fault. Fortunately for the lady, a witness stepped forward and ultimately the report was changed to put the fault on the truck driver where it belonged.

We ended up back at Walmart and bought groceries. We left Walmart and pushed the shopping cart back to my Jeep and put the groceries into the cargo space in the back of the Jeep. A bitterly cold wind swept across the parking lot. We came home and carried many bags of groceries into the house. For dinner we had baked fish, mashed potatoes, and red, white, and orange baby carrots. Then we took a break before eating homemade pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

The wheels are just beginning to turn on the auto insurance. There are many threads that must yet be woven together. I've had an auto accident myself, but it was long ago. It was my fault. But that's another story of another time and a very different VirtualWayne than the one who lives today. I hope none of my readers have to go through the auto insurance labyrinth due to an accident. It's not fun.