A Car Crash Story-Happy Thanksgiving!

Before Patric went to work on Wednesday, November 24 he was telling me about a coworker of his that got into a car crash that totaled her car. I spoke about how much that sucked...but apparently I forgot to knock on wood.

I missed a call from Patric at 930 that morning. Patric doesn't leave work until about 930 every morning (even though he is supposed to be at work at 930...) but he must have left around 920 that day. I wondered why he had called me and thought, "well maybe he just wanted to tell me he loved me" (cause, yes people, sometimes he calls right after he leaves to tell me he loves me). Unfortunately, that was NOT the case this morning. I actually had plans to hang out with my friend Valerie that morning, so I had a reason to get up and shower since I said I could be at her house between 10 and 1030. I called Patric back and he told me that he was in a car accident but that he couldn't talk because the police had just arrived.

I can tell you I didn't worry about him. Obviously, if he could call me, and he sounded ok, that he was ok. He called me after the police left and told me that was rear ended on Minnieville. He was stopped waiting to turn left (or make a u-turn) and the other driver came speeding up to him and looked down to get her coffee (at least that is her story...) and slammed right into Patric going about 45 mph. Thank the heavens above Patric looked in his rear view mirror and saw that she was not slowing down and decided to try to avoid her. He wasn't successful, but it could have been MUCH worse. She did hit him on the right back side of the car.

Patric came home because the car was making some noise, the muffler was hanging off etc. He had to take my car to work. Can you imagine going to work after that? My husband is so dedicated! I hope his boss understands that!

So, of course, this being the day before Thanksgiving, we didn't have much time to process everything. Poor Patric doesn't complain much of pain, and he said that his back and neck was hurting quite a bit. It wasn't until Saturday that I thought, oh crap, the car could be totaled! It was a 2002 Hyundai Elantra...with 106k miles on it. Not a very valuable car to many, but it was to us because it was paid off and had been paid off for 2.5 years! We were starting to have weird issues with it, like it not starting for some reason every now and then. We were researching what to do with that and he had three belts that needed to be replaced. THANK GOODNESS WE DIDN'T DO IT!

Sunday, a person from the insurance came to see the car and as we suspected, the car was totaled. We had to immediately start thinking about what we were going to do about a car. Would we buy a smaller car again for Patric to commute to and from work? Would we buy a bigger car for our family to grow into? Let me tell you, for me, this was the hardest decision to make in a long time! I was constantly thinking about cars and researching. I had never thought about buying a big car at this point in my life...since I only have one kid. During the olympics, we saw ads for the Kia Sorento (of course they had Muno from Yo Gabba Gabba so Josh loved to watch those commercials) and thought that it could be a possibility. So after poor Patric had a long day of work on Monday, in which he said he felt weird all day and foggy, we went over to the Kia dealership to try it out. The Kia has a lot of cool features. I knew I didn't want to get a 5 seater car. To me, what is the point of getting a bigger one if it is only 5 seats? The Matrix has 5 seats...we could just get another one of those. We would have to get the top of the line Sorento to get the 7 seater.

Tuesday--I went to drive a 2008 Honda Pilot after I did some work. I brought my stepdad Charlie with me. I liked driving the Pilot. Josh just happened to leave his toy horse at the dealership so I had to go back anyway and Patric went with me and test drove it that night.

We weren't rushing into a purchase, so we walked away. Next night, we went to a Miller Toyota and test drove a Highlander. I did like how the Highlander drove, but felt it was kind of small. (Why do I need a big car? The highlander would be VERY suitable for the size of my family right now!)

We walked away from there as well. By Wednesday night I am exhausted from thinking about cars. I spent most of three days researching these cars. Read a MILLION reviews. Surveyed facebook...the works! Then I turned it back on Patric. I said, what if we just go with a small car?? I made Patric make the ultimate decision (which I have been doing a lot lately, I am tired of making all of the decisions and am putting my trust into my husband)...because somewhere in my head I knew we should get the big car...but I didn't want to be the only one thinking that. Patric spent Wednesday night researching small cars (or at least prices.) We know what type of car we would get..so he wanted to see prices.

Thursday night, I woke up and asked him what he thought. Patric said he felt we should go with the 2008 Honda Pilot. I won't go into the details of why he came to this decision, but we were both on the same page, so we did it! I do have to say, I was quite the haggler on this one. I made Patric deal with most of the negotiating...but I was the final STING to the dealership. My mom heard some of my negotiating and was all thumbs up. She even told me she was proud of me! She said the dealership might think that because I am pretty and blond (and then she corrected herself...since I do NOT have blond hair right now...but in her mind I will always have blond hair) that I wouldn't be able to handle myself. I do have to say that the only reason I suddenly got a backbone in this is that the salesman I test drove the car with the second time (not our original sales person) told me that there was probably still room to come down on the price. Little did the manager there know that. He thought everything was set and I was just making the final decision on the car and then we were going to start the paperwork. HA! The second salesman also got me new mats (the other ones were NASTY)...he saw them and was like, ew gross, we will get you some new ones. He also updated the safety inspection, shined up the car and tires, filled up more of the tank, contacted the previous owner of the car for the headrests because they were missing. Seriously, this guy is AWESOME.

We had an overall good experience at Hendrick Honda. I had to be pretty mean to the finance manager initially, so when we went in to sign papers I joked around with him a lot. I said, you got to see my brutal side, now you can see that I can actually be nice. He gave us a few breaks when we finally got it all going and we are happy with our decision.

This morning when I was thinking about the car, it sunk in. I was no longer going to have my baby every day to drive. I have been driving my Toyota Matrix since July of 2004. I NEVER wanted to get rid of the car, and while it isn't gone...Patric gets to take it to work now everyday. I know I should be ecstatic about driving the Pilot, but it is a bit intimidating. I will get used to it (as everyone keeps telling me) and all will be well. The car payment is going to suck. It was nice not to have one for awhile....but alas, we tend to get hit back into debt one way or another. We are just blessed that we are able to pay for the things that come our way...one way or the other.

Here are some pictures -

This picture shows you that the frame of the car was bent...there shouldn't be a space between the black part and the metal.


And the new car, equipped with our Christmas tree we bought tonight.

So there it is...the story of Patric's car accident and our ventures of buying our new(well new to us) car!