So...
An update.
Tuesday I was out at a client site when there was a great cacophony from the parking lot. Somebody rushed in to say that somebody got run over, and not wanting to be in the way, I just went back to my business. After the initial hubbub had died down it became apparent that there was no actual meat sacks popped and people began to trickle back into the office.
I decided that I should go and check on my car at this point.
Now, I first apologize for my lack of photography. I don't automatically reach for my camera when I'm doing something. It may be that I'm a bit old fashioned like that. Or it may just be that I'm forgetful.
So, to start I need to describe the layout of the building and lot. The building is a ugly 80's concrete medical office block. Impressive only in its lack of originality, facing the north on a service road with a row of parking spaces along the front. Going around the side there is provision for employee parking, the requisite dumpsters and tucked in the far end a small green space with a picnic bench for the staff to lunch at.
In front of the office I was in was a Honda Accord with its front end and passenger fender torn open like an orange in the microwave. Great flaps of steel and urethane opened around the shattered remnants of a tyre and a headlamp. Like some modernistic sculpture of a chrysanthemum.
To the right my car sat, alone and unmoved. Nestled in her parking spot at the end by the green space.
To my right is one of my clients hygienists. Flapping and puffing like a flightless bird.
Slowly though my own observations an the descriptions delivered by Julie (the hygienist), I began to piece together the incident...
An older, but by no means aged woman was parking her Mercedes in one of the handicapped spots at the center of the building. Some-how missing her brake she pressed into the accelerator at the end of the spot. Having no curb (on account of being a handicapped space) the great beast lept forward into motion! Apparently not being one to park straight her wheel was pulled to the right, causing the hurdling car to narrowly mis the cement columns erected for just this purpose. The run-away vehicle then collided with the building that lay in her path, ricocheting her back towards the service road and through the line of parked cars. By luck or design the Merc found an open space and ground it's flank down the length of the hygienist new (ish) MDX, scouring away burgundy paint and bits of trim from passenger front wheel to the end of her bumper.
The great German v8, undaunted by this angular piece of Japanese steel, pressed on! Somehow managing to complete the turn and ending back down the service road inscribing a giant number 9 of distraction if seen from the sky, she collided with the Honda being driven by an wizened octogenarian who was only doing a solid to her neighbor, easily in her nineties and well past her days of driving, taking her between doctor appointments. This other car proved little match for the marauding saloon. It sped on, un-slowed by the fatal blow it delivered to the Honda.
And this point, dear readers, is where you will begin to cringe. For the run-away car was headed towards the rear. Towards that far-away corner where I parked my lovely little car. But, some small amount of luck was with me. By Provence or by the catatonic state the driver was in, she was unwavering in her path. She didn't attempt to follow the road, a maneuver that most certainly would of resulted in her spinning out of control, doing untold (well, I'm sure the insurance adjuster could of told us) hundreds of thousands of dollars in automotive carnage. She stayed the course. Leaping the curb and into the picnic table, with such force that the table exploded into hundreds of pieces.
But she was not yet free! Between her and the freedom of the open road was a line of trees and, a rather deep drainage ditch. Either the bench or the trees exacted the toll that the Hondas could not. It's fury spent, the Mercedes came to its final rest, high centered on the crest of the drainage ditch.
Oh, but what of your car you may ask.
At this point, I will not lie, I wanted to run to my car and see how she lay. Was she inured? Were her beautiful lines still unblemished? It took every ounce of will I could muster to keep from breaking my measured stride. Upon reaching her, all was looking good from the front and side. Copious quantities of mud and GRAS speckled her side and roof, but none were bigger than a pea, and the soil was soft and wet from that mornings snow.
The rear however caused my heart to leap to my throat once more. Chunks of detritus and splinters peppered the ground all about the rear of my car! Just behind and nearly under the rear drivers side tyre was a 2x10, nearly the full length of the bench. And to her side was the target of that missile of lumber, a nearly new Cherokee, it's fender folded, the impression of the terminal face of that wooden spear. So forceful and so massive I could all but see the rings as they were imprinted into the steel of the fender.
Now, to pause, normally I park with my ass end as far back as possible. I bury my little car into the smallest corner of the farthest parking space whenever and wherever I can. however that day, I bumped up on a drift of dirt and had stopped myself from rolling all the way back into that corner. My rear wheels were a good two feet from that curb. That little chunk of sand saved my car from epic distraction. Had I not, had I rolled over the story I would be writing would be one of grievous injury. But instead a hunk of 2x4. No larger than my fist (perhaps closer to Mike Tyson's fist), delivered a solid uppercut with the force of a cannon planted itself on the rear hatch of my car. Denting her lines, tenting the crease below the glass, and sending off chips of paint and abrasions in her coat. But fortune did smile on me that day. The damage is contained.
And the driver of this mad jalopy? She was helped from the wreck, by the hands of the authorities. Sadly she was confused as to why she could not drive away, and blissfully unaware of the swathe of destruction she had wrought on this sad, ugly little medical building.
