The (Old) New Car...

I don't normally post pictures on my blog, and especially not first thing in an entry. But this is just impressive, so I had to share:

See, I told you I'd write something about the car I got.

Anywho, as you can tell from the lovely graphic above, the 1993 Ford Explorer I bought January 3rd, 2011 is no more as of August 1st, 2011. I spent--overspent--$1500 on this beaut after spring semester at GA State was fast approaching and I had no foreseeable transportation in sight. Straight off the bat I took it by my boyfriend's trusted mechanic shop, since we were in his part of town, only to discover it badly needed new brakes and tires (apparently one of the tires wasn't the same size as the others when I got it). Yes, I know, that could have easily been remedied by looking at the tire sizes prior to purchase, but I was just glad I realized the key the seller intended to give me didn't work in any of the doors before I bought the thing (he purchased a new one as part of the purchasing deal).

But it was a hardy little truck. Only two doors, but fairly nimble for an SUV and it handled surprisingly well. Never did fix the weirdness with the A/C even after replacing the blower motor (the original caught fire), ended up putting in new brakes twice because of leaking brake fluid, and no one ever gave me a satisfactory answer as to why the car consistently vibrated between 65 and 75 mph even after I got used to the vibration, but it got me from A to B on most days.

As for how the car ended upside down: I was on a quick lunch break at my writing internship and intended to head home, stopping by the bank on the way. I usually didn't leave work for lunch but I needed to run a few errands that Monday, so I hopped on GA 400 to travel one exit. That's right, one measly exit. And I did travel one exit, but upon approaching the exit ramp, I was apparently over too far in the dirt. Which might have been fine except for whatever reason--recent construction?--there were these little dugouts next to the side of the road, causing me to lose control of my car. I was careening towards a sign and in an effort to miss it swerved. I succeeded in missing the sign but having a high center of gravity combined with my speed, I flipped over in the middle of the exit ramp.

It happened so fast that I didn't realize I had flipped over until I was physically upside-down in the driver's seat. My initial thoughts were that 1) I was about to die because someone is going to crash into me for not reacting fast enough to my accident, 2) oh god I've killed some 3-month-old baby by crashing into another car, 3) is there a car fire going which I can't see but will cause an explosion in a few seconds? and 4) great, I've probably got horrible, horrible injuries which I simply can't feel yet because of the adrenaline rush. But most pressing was the overriding thought "CICI, GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS WRECK!" so I tried the seatbelt release. Nothing. No worries, though: a few seconds of panicked shifting while pressing the release button succeeded in undoing the seatbelt. Serendipity would have it that my driver's side window was rolled down prior to crashing for the lack of working A/C during summertime, and thus I simply climbed through the open window in a matter of seconds to exit the vehicle once my seatbelt was off.

Despite the initial scariness of the situation I was supremely lucky to have escaped the accident literally unscathed. The severity of the crash warranted the arrival of an ambulance, but I declined a hospital visit despite the paramedic's insistence that I might have internal injuries. Even the cop who drove me to the nearby Waffle House (where I waited for the parents to pick me up) noted that I would probably feel sore later from the stress on my body of being in an accident, but I never even experienced that. The only physical indication that I had been in a rollover was the bits of windshield glass lodged in my hair.

Since I destroyed neither people nor property (other than my own), the cops saw no reason to add insult to injury by giving me a ticket. My insurance company even ended up paying me a grand total of $1700 ($2200 minus $500 deduction) for the car because of all the repairs I had done, so at least I received more than the $1500 the car cost me. Still a loss considering the amount I spent in repairs, but hey, I'll take whatever I can get for a horribly totaled car. Once all the dust was settled I ended up replacing this upside-down clunker with a much better vehicle which, eight months later, still hasn't left me stranded anywhere or broken down. All in all, if you're going to involve yourself in a rollover crash, this would be the ideal way to have things turn out.

So the moral of story, kids, is to: crash your car and use the insurance money to get an improved ride. Or just be a better fucking driver than I am. Yeah, that second one's probably easier to do...

So what was the magical new car I got afterwards? Ah, until next post, my friends, until next post.