A Tale of Two Mazdas

It's a good thing we have only two cars.

I'm not sure how many more stress knots our backs can handle.

And I'm also sure that our insurance representative wouldn't answer the phone if she saw our number pop up again.

Over the course of two Fridays, last Friday, Sept. 10th, and yesterday, Sept. 17th, we've managed to send both of our rides, the Mazda 3 and the Mazda Tribute, to the Mazda repair shop. Thankfully, only the cars had to go to the hospital. Neither one of us or the other drivers did.

This is the Mazda 3 that Justin was driving Friday, Sept. 10th:


He got front-end T-boned by a gal with a learner's permit, who was accompanied by someone with a suspended license, as she turned to cross 4 lanes of traffic, only to find that not all the lanes had stopped to let her through. The impact, which wasn't at a high rate of speed, thank goodness, pushed the car up and onto a curb and into a pole. The other side of the car had a flat tire and the bumper is bent out a bit.

Outside damage doesn't look too bad, but there are a few things to deal with inside. Thankfully, Justin left without a scratch, as did the two ladies. He was just a bit sore for a few days.

This is the Mazda tribute that was parked innocently on the side of the road on Friday, Sept. 17th, while I was working away inside the store.

I would like to point out that I had in fact parked within the real parking lines, so the Tribute was pushed up a good 4 feet or so, with the emergency brake on.

A fellow apparently ran into the Mazda. Some of the store employees heard it, saw the truck leave, and came inside to deliver the bad news. We all assumed it would have been a hit and run, but the fellow came back, we chatted and he left again to go get his insurance info.

In the meantime I called the PD to ask for someone to come by in the event we needed a case report or something. The kind officer simply facilitated the exchange of our information, said she enjoyed shopping at our store, and then went about her business.

We had the Tribute towed to the fix-it place because the damage was near the gas tank and things had been pushed up near the tire and I wasn't too comfortable with the idea of driving it over to the East Bay to our friendly repairman.

So now Justin and I each have a rental car. He has a silver Ford Fusion and I have a blue Nissan Altima. By the way, State Farm and Grange Insurance have been wonderful to work with during these events.

It's been a fun ride. No pun intended. We're just thankful all drivers involved are ok!