QuixoticKitten's blog

Crash

In my twelve years of driving, I've managed to avoid an actual vehicle-to-vehicle collision. Considering that all of my driving life has been in Los Angeles, that's a miracle. But as of Friday, I'm no longer the exception.

I was driving back home from running errands when this guy suddenly decided to drive straight across the street I was on. I managed to slam on the brakes, but there was no way to avoid the hit completely. Luckily, his '97 Buick Skylark hit the front corner of my little Honda instead of slamming into the driver's side door area (who says seconds don't count?).

No one was hurt, which is the main thing. He was very nice, he apologised profusely, and we exchanged the required information. I felt kind of badly for him; he has to return home and explain to his brother why his brother's car is missing its entire nose... and it was his fault. He was able to drive his car, but I couldn't drive mine, so I had to wait for a tow.

I have GEICO Insurance, and most everyone I spoke with there was very nice. Unfortunately, I still didn't have a very good experience with them.

1) I was left waiting for nearly FIVE hours for a tow truck, and the one that finally came to get me, I had to arrange for myself!

I understand that apparently their roadside assistance division who was arranging for my tow is located in Georgia. It's difficult enough to know L.A. when one lives here, so I totally understand that someone who doesn't wouldn't have a very good idea as to how close varying areas are. I mean, mileage-wise, one city may be closer than another, but because of traffic, time-wise a different city may actually be "closer".

I waited for thirty minutes for the first tow company before I called the company to find out where the truck was. I was told the driver was navigating the traffic on the 101 and it would be another twenty minutes.

After a total wait of one and a half hours, I called again, only to find out that that tow truck had been cancelled because he'd been pulled over by a police officer to assist with an accident on the freeway. I then received a phone call from GEICO roadside assistance telling me what I'd just found out already from the first company, and he let me know a second company was being dispatched from Van Nuys.

After an hour, I called the second tow company to ask the status of their driver. I was told he was twenty minutes away. After forty minutes, I called again, and the woman on the phone *lied* to me: she said the driver was twenty minutes away, and when I told her that is what she told me over forty minutes ago, she said, "Well, we only got the call for you twenty minutes ago." Excuse me, what?? I spoke with you FORTY minutes ago, and you're saying you got my call TWENTY minutes ago? How the fuck does that work??

I called GEICO and explained that the second tow company was not only still not at the scene, that I'd been waiting for over three and a half hours at this point, but that the woman on the phone was actually *lying* to me.

After waiting on hold, the GEICO rep told me that, yes, the second company was trying to give him the run around also, but basically he'd been told that he would be another twenty minutes. Twenty minutes? Like, what that bitch had been telling me for the past two hours? I had been told up until this point that GEICO didn't contract with any of the tow companies closer to my location in Studio City, but I brought it up with this rep again, "Listen, I'm ONE BLOCK from TEN different tow companies, can I call and arrange for a tow from someone closer than across town? It's been FOUR HOURS since my accident, I'm covered in frappaccino, my groceries have spoilt, and I really, really, really want to go home."

I was told that if I wanted to arrange for my own tow, I was responsible for cancelling the tow from that second company, Jon's Towing, otherwise I'd have to pay for the tow. I would also be responsible for paying for the tow by the new company, and GEICO would reimburse me.

I called Monty's Club Service and asked them if they could help me and how long it would be. They said they'd come and get me in ten minutes. I called and cancelled the tow from Jon's Towing at 5:25pm, Monty was there by 5:30pm. He said ten minutes and the man meant ten minutes!

Not only did Monty's show up promptly, their driver explained to me that I shouldn't be paying for the tow out of *my* pocket. He informed me that the place my car is being taken to should pay for the tow, and the price of the tow is added to their invoice to the insurance company. Thank you! I did not know that!

As I watched Monty's drive my car off into the sunset, I glanced at my watch: 5:45pm. My accident had occurred at 1:20pm. The place GEICO had told me to have my car towed to closed at 7pm, and it was located in Van Nuys (twenty to thirty minutes away). If I'd continued waiting for Jon's Towing, my car would have had no place to be towed to!

2) GEICO, don't argue with your customers---especially when you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. It's annoying. Really.

The person who called me from GEICO's roadside assistance to inform me that my first tow company was cancelled and I had a second one on the way was, honestly, the only person I dealt with from GEICO that I didn't like.

Sure, he had a cute Southern accent, but once he started insisting that I was wrong about the L.A.P.D. not coming out to non-injury car accidents, I started getting a little peeved.

Here's the deal: if you are in a car accident, and NO ONE IS INJURED, the police will not come. They won't. They tell you to pull the cars over to the side of the road, exchange information, then go along your merry way.

Think of it this way: this is L.A.---if the police came to the scene of *every* car accident, they would NEVER do anything else. Really.

Hell, when *I* was hit by a car in the crosswalk, when I called the police, they asked me, "Do you need an ambulance? Can you stand? Can you walk? Can you drive yourself to the hospital? Okay, we're not coming out. You can file a report if you want to, but unless you have the person's full license plate number, there's nothing we can do." WTF? And Mr. GEICO Roadside ASSistance is telling me, with his sweet Southern (and NOT Southern California) accent, that I am WRONG about what the police in my city do and do not do? Why is he even arguing with me?

A few interesting things from all of this:
I'm not upset about my car. I thought I would be, since it was my first brand new car ever and I do love the thing and take good care of it. But I'm not. I'm okay with it.

I had two intuitions/feelings/whatever on Friday that I ignored---and now realise I shouldn't've. My first was to not go out at all that day. I thought I was procrastinating, so I made myself go run these errands. The second was on my way home, I had this overwhelming urge to take the freeway back, which never happens. I talked myself out of it, rationalising that I wasn't going very far, so I continued on my usual route. Maybe I should stop with all the rationalising and just go with the woo woo. When I don't, the cosmos kicks my arse.

Having been in two accidents now, one human-vehicle collision and one vehicle-vehicle, I much prefer being IN the vehicle when such a thing occurs!

On the bright side, I got my errands done!

I keep my friends as misers do their treasure, because, of all the
things granted us by wisdom, none is greater or better than friendship.

-- Pietro Aretino

Save Me Some Vicodin - Oh Yeah, Get Well Soon!

In the age of email, there is something extraordinarily delicious about putting pen to paper to write a note, of pasting a stamp onto an envelope, and of receiving something in the post that has travelled for days to reach you, something that was written and sent from someone who cares about you, something in the postbox that is not a bill!

O Plus D has the cutest, craziest, sassiest notecards and greeting cards I've ever seen. 

Let's partake in the retro pleasure of letter writing.

Porches at Warwick Grove

This summer, NPR.org's All Things Considered is studying the history and importance of the front porch to American life.

The front porch is an interesting, curious thing.  It may not seem like much, just a bit of appendage off of the main house, but that little extra bit of real estate is capable of remarkable things.  For one, front porches help build a sense of community and neighbourliness.  When people are sitting on their front porch, it invites a friendly hello, neighbourly interaction, which helps build and foster a very real sense of community... something most urban areas are lacking more and more. 

I remember and miss the front porch of my parents' house when I was growing up.  It was a place to play, a place to meet with my friends and neighbours and chat about everything and nothing; it was a relaxing oasis where we would often meet at one porch, travel to another for iced tea, move on to another still for cookies or cake.  It all sounds so quaint now, just twenty years later.

Of course I am not against technology.  I love and embrace the incredible things it allows, like interactions and friendships with people across the country---even across the globe!  But it also seems like technology is isolating us within our homes.  People may have hundreds of friends online, yet not know their four closest neighbours at all. 

I'm enjoying NPR's look at the humble front porch.  Sometimes it really is about the simple things in life.

• Sitting on the Porch: Not a Place, But a State of Mind

• Porches Knit Together New Urbanist Communities

What's your cell phone's ringtone? What made you pick it?

My mobile's ringtone is U2's "Beautiful Day".  I did *not* like the four ringtones that came with my phone (none of them the sound of a normal phone ring, btw), so my one and only very much begrudged purchase was for a ringtone that wouldn't make me throw the phone across the room.  :oP  I chose the U2 song because U2 has been my favourite band just about all of my life, and the song keeps me upbeat.