Last Sunday, Alex and I went for a routine brunch which ended up costing us $500. Very expensive even for Manhattan prices so where did we go? We merely went to a very inexpensive diner 10 minutes from home but made the fatal mistake of parking the car on the street. Poor car spends 80% of its time in the garage only to be hit after being on the street for 1 hour. How cruel? Or should I say, how unfair?
Witness the damage:
Before:
After:
I know it doesn’t even look damaged but it’s just the angle. There’s a BIG DENT on the center front of the hood and the metal piece on the left of the picture is BENT. Not that bad but if you know cars, you should know that fixing a dent may require repainting and in our case, fixing the dent and repaiting the hood cost us a whopping 500 cool bucks. How uncool.
Coming out from the diner, we saw these:
That’s me in the background grabbing for my cellphone to call the cops.
Another shot of the car parked in front.
You know what’s so amazing about the damage? If you look closely at the first picture, you’ll notice that the first thing that will be damaged when the car is hit in the front is the bumper. In our case, the bumper has not been hit, neither was the grille on top. Whatever that hit us, it has to be coming from the area above ordinary car bumpers and SOFT, because even though our hood was dented, there was NO SCTRACHES AT ALL.
So, if you were to look at the pictures again, you’ll notice that the jeep in front has a big-ass tyre hanging behind, well-positioned to hit us on the hood. Too far-fetched? Read on and you’ll know why we are 99% certain it was the jeep that caused the damage.
The jeep driver came back, 20 minutes into our wait. A woman (in her fifties?) with her daughter and grandson. We told her about the damage to our car and that we have called the cops and it would be great if she will stay behind to wait for the cops. (Ok, I gotta admit I specifically ASKED her to stay because IT LOOKS LIKE the damage was done by her jeep). As expected, she got all agitated and then we made the mistake of telling her that it might cost upwards to a few thousand dollars to fix the damage. To be honest, I have no freaking idea how much it’ll cost for repair but one guy who happen to see our incident (he lives around the area) commented that it might cost that much especially since it needs to be repainted and it’s a BMW. So we were just repeating what has been told to us in an effort to convince her that’s it’s serious and we need to report to the cops.
That was a major big big mistake. Because she soon started to accuse us of trying to scam her and took our her phone and called the cops. I got really agitated when she called 911 and said that we asked for a few thousand dollars from her. What the #@##? We have never ever asked her for any money. All we wanted was for her to stay until the cops arrive. I raised my voice and told her not to lie and she can always leave if she wants.
What follow was of course not fun, especially considering the cops took 2.5 hours to arrive. In that 2.5 hours, we got upset, resigned to our fate, had some “arguments” with that woman, took some pictures (both us and the woman) and witnessed more ridiculous events.
First Event: 1 hour into the wait
Woman’s son (or son-in-law or friend) came, driving an old vintage car, and they checked the damage. I did not want to eavesdrop but these were some of those things we overheard.
“You see this letter D here? (on the Dunlop tyre) It matches to the dent here on the hood”
“I can show you how it’s done but I’ll have to back the car”
He asked the woman to exchange insurance details with us and went off to talk about his car to the neighbours. Did the woman admit her fault then? Of course not! She said he thinks it’s possible, that’s all. Great, thanks for being cooperative!
Second Event: 2 hrs into the wait
We have basically trying to avoid talking to her all these while knowing how cunning and unreasonable she is. Suddenly, she was all nice and talked to us trying to analyze the situation. I should have smelled a rat there. Before long, she again accused us of trying to scam her and me being agitated ask her, “What do you mean by that????”. To which she replied, “What do I mean? Hun… Let me explain to you again in clear English. Bla bla… scam… bla bla money bla bla…”
I was so angry I could have gone into a shouting match with her but I did not because firstly, it’s pointless to talk to her and secondly, I didn’t want to get Alex more upset than he already was. So I proceeded to turn my back to her and asked Alex and our friend not to talk to her anymore. She continued to taunt us but she couldn’t say much to my back (she could talk to my butt for all I care) and finally kept silent.
Third Event: Cops arrived 2.5 hrs into the wait
Cops arrived finally and basically said we have no case since we have no witness but we could still file a report for insurance purposes. The woman was like, “So can I leave now?” and then proceeded to apologize to us and be all nice (???) and fled the scene. In her haste to leave, she almost knocked into the policewoman and our car again when she reversed the jeep. In the movie world where the good guys always win, it will usually end with the bad guy being taken back to the police station. In real life, it ended with the policewoman exclaiming, “Did you see she almost knocked me down????” but that’s it. No witness, no case. Comical, isn’t it? If only she had stepped a little harder on the pedal. But then, I wouldn’t want the policewoman to be hurt and our car to be hit again. Sigh…
And to conclude our expensive breakfast, today’s lessons are:
1. Beware of woman driver in dark green jeep with big-ass hanging tyre at the back around Northern Blvd area. She has no idea how to include the tyre into her estimation when backing her jeep.
2. No matter how full the parking lot is, always go for valet parking if it’s free and available. It should be easier to talk to the restaurant’s owner than hit-and-run strangers when accident happens.
3. There’s no good diners around the Northern Blvd area. Stick to Chinese food!
