Celebrating an absolute Saga of cosmetic damage

Welp. It's official. Jedediah has awful luck.

Backstory: Jedediah is my car, also known affectionately as "Little Jed", which affectionate name is usually accompanied by an affectionate pat on his dashboard. In case you couldn't tell, there's a lot of affection going on up in here. I am kind of attached. ( fun tidbit: I form arguably unhealthy bonds with inanimate objects on a fairly consistent basis.)

Moving right along! Jedediah once belonged to my beloved brother Ben, who bought him in college. Jed was a salvaged title. If I remember correctly, when Ben adopted him, he had already been rear-ended and broadsides a couple times. And then Ben married my sister and somewhere in there they rear-ended somebody, and somewhere in there he got rear-ended again, I think. It's hard to keep track and I probably have it wrong. All I really know is one of those stories includes my pregnant sister, a firmly locked door, a crazy swearing lady, and a call to the police.

At this point in his life, Jed is pretty quirky.  (a fact which absolutely factors into my feelings of affection) In list form:
 -the drivers seat squeaks uncontrollably, which is pretty useful when I want to freak people out.
- the button on top of the shifter isn't attached, and I have this habit of playing with it until it flips somewhere in the car until I dig it out from under the seats and return it to it's rightful place. It's only still there because Ben was super OCD about it, and I obligingly carried on the tradition.
- The back passenger window doesn't shut tight. I discovered this the first time I drove Jed on the freeway and thought he was dead cause there was a tire leaking somewhere. Further experience has demonstrated that the wind just whistles like a freaking banshee the instant you hit 80 miles an hour.
- The volume button is extremely temperamental. The only thing that works is love.
- As a result of all the accidents, Jed's rebuilt body doesn't quite fit together exactly right in some spots. aka, the weather stripping on the trunk doesn't seal, and the drivers visor gets stuck in some cracks above the door, a fact I discovered after smacking myself with it a couple times while yanking it out of the stupid crevaces.
- Finally, the gas gauge is broken, a fun fact Erin discovered when she ran out of gas on the freeway on the way to a final exam. Ben has accordingly taught me to be super OCD about keeping track of the miles. Just like a three year old boy, when Jed says he's full, he's lying, and he will shortly throw a fit and demand sustenance.

So anyway. I'm sure you all cared about that. The point is that Jed, who seems to be a car of fixable accidents, has recently been mushed a little bit, this time in my care. In celebration of the first day of spring semester, the cosmos decided to send me a surprise in the form of some girl who left her car on the hill outside my apartment and did not put it in park. Although I was in class for this little fiasco, the story goes that her car rolled up over the sidewalk , clipped the bumper of some red truck, hit the middle of the mazda parked next to me, and pushed said mazda into my own Jedediah. 

So Jed is okay. Not in critical condition. It's just the panel above the wheel. It even missed the door. However, the wheelwell is mushed in enough that I can't drive the car, cause the wheel won't turn. Also, I've been playing phone tag with multiple insurance companies all week, because somehow they can't determine liability.  How hard is it to tell that it is her fault? Her car was not in park. So basically, we're stuck, Jed and I. And they better get the dang police report and fix my car soon or I will go berserk. And no one wants that. I can be a real shrew when "things like this"* happen.

So cross your fingers for me and Jed, okay? If he doesn't get fixed soon, we won't be coming home next week. Which will be sad cause I miss the fam damily. Of course, I would then be forced to reschedule that dentist appointment where they are going to put a drill in my mouth and make me pay for it. Ah, silver linings!

*"Things like this", including, but not limited to:
- Knocking my car. In this case, literally.
- Knocking my authors. Victor is my homeboy.
- Chronic Diet Coke deprivation.
- Short-term Diet Coke deprivation.
- Forced proximity with lazy co-workers. Story there.