Real Life, Part MCXVIII
Category: Local...
Posted Wednesday, December 21, 2005 at 09:40 PM [GMT-6]

I had lots that I intended to post about today, but a phone call from MLB this afternoon preempted everything.

"The Niece crashed the car," she said. "It's sitting in the Hobby Lobby parking lot with a ruined tire and bumper. Can you go check on things? They're waiting on a tow truck but they're not sure if that's the right thing to do."

I locked up and headed to the scene, which is about a mile as the crow flies from our house. Our old Plymouth Neon was a sad sight, matching the looks on the faces of The Niece and her mom.

She had somehow lost control after exiting the loop, jumped two curbs and flew -- literally, according to an eyewitness -- into the parking lot. She managed to avoid hitting any other cars in the process, coming to a halt in a relatively open area. Both airbags deployed, the front left wheel was taco'ed (a technical crash term), the front bumper (which, admittedly, had seen some prior abuse under the ministrations of two newly-licensed drivers) draped to the pavement, and a small pool of fluid was forming under a wrinkled transmission case.

On the plus side, The Niece was relatively unharmed, other than an aching wrist (which later was diagnosed as a bad sprain), possibly due to being caught by the airbag. Also, the engine started up without a hitch, so it seemed to be at least temporarily driveable; I made a judgment call and canceled the tow truck. Even better, the car came to rest a hundred yards from the best tire store in west Texas, the Discount Tire outlet. In fact, the manager of the store was the eyewitness mentioned above. He and two of his employees came out and helped secure the bumper and mount the temporary spare (I had removed the ruined wheel by the time they arrived). We asked if they had a wheel that would fit the car and they did, so I had the Nephew drive it over, where we got in the queue for a replacement. Thirty minutes later, I was escorting The Nephew home in the Neon, The Niece having gone with her mom to the emergency room to get her wrist checked out, and we arrived without incident.

The car's a mess, though. I'm worried about possible damage to the transmission, and The Nephew said that the car pulled badly to one side. I noticed a dent in the left rear wheel when we got home; it will likely need to be replaced at some point.

But, as I said, it could have been much worse. It's a miracle that no other vehicles were involved, given the heavy traffic in that area this time of year. There's a guardian angel somewhere who deserves a big Christmas bonus. Well, there's probably a whole troop of 'em, considering we're talking about a teenaged driver. If that's not a hazardous duty job, I don't know what is.

I also can't say enough about the guys at Discount Tire. I've always been impressed with their service and prices -- I buy all of our replacement tires there -- but they went above and beyond this afternoon. I recommend 'em highly.