Abracadabra

I just finished my seventh week of school and the 8th graders just took their unit test over George Orwell's Animal Farm. Despite how much I enjoy my kids, how much I enjoyed having Mallory here, and how well everything has worked out with my move thus far, I feel discontent. Maybe it's just because I haven't blogged in awhile. We'll see.

Lifetime Incompetence Award

If you've been keeping up on the blog here, you'll remember that I was in a car accident in late August. Click here to read the post. That was the last day of classroom preparation I had before school started the next Monday.

Those of you who know me know that I have lots of luck. Good and bad. Things never go "alright" for me. They are always terrible or great. I will now recount for you the tale of how fate gave me the most incompetent insurance agent who has ever lived.

While still at the scene of my accident, as my arm was bleeding and the firetruck (because when you tell 911 dispatch the cancel the ambulance they send a firetruck) was just rolling up, I was already on the phone with Progressive reporting my claim.

At the time I was really excited about the fact that Colorado doesn't do No-Fault Insurance. That meant that the woman who blindly pulled out into moving traffic and hit me would have to pay for the damages and my insurance rates wouldn't go up, unlike in Michigan where when an old man hits my parked car, sets of the alarm, pulls forward, and then backs into it again, I end up paying a couple hundred bucks more per year for insurance.

Unfortantly, because Colorado doesn't do No-Fault Insuranace I've had to spend the last 9 weeks dealing with some jacktard that has no interest in keeping me happy at all. And here's what happened:

Week 1: I call Mr. W and try to arrange a time for him to look at my car and do an estimate.

Week 2: He misses the appointment we made, shows up the next day when I'm not at home, drops his business card on my driver's seat (through the non-existent window) and leaves.

Week 3: I receive, not a phone call or an e-mail telling me what's going on, but a check for $4,500. I wonder if I should contest the amount and call my Progressive agent who tells me a of a reliable body shop to take the car to.

Week 4: I finally get ahold of Mr. W again and let him know that if I'm going to take my car in to get repaired that I need a rental. The guy at the body shop ends up negotiating the rental with Enterprise because Mr. W can't seem to figure out how. After looking at my car for about 10 minutes Sam, the guy at the body shop, says "there is a lot more damage here than he put on this estimate... ...he also put about 12 items on here that don't even exist on a Chevy Aveo..."

Week 5: Mr. W, after telling me he would be back down to give my car another look, goes on vacation for a week. Both Sam and I call his office a couple times a day until we find out, on Wednesday, that he won't be back in the office until the next Tuesday.

Week 6: I drive a rental around.

Week 7: I play phone tag with Mr. W's secretary. The XM free trial ends on my rental. Mr. W takes another 3 days worth of vacation.

Week 8: Voicemail message from Mr. W "uh... Mr. Good it looks like we're going to have to declare a total loss on your vehicle, get in touch with me as soon as you can." I loot Gretchen's corpse and wait to hearfrom Mr. W about a settlement. Mr. W tells me that they'll give me 10 G's for Gretchen and I agree. He claims he'll take care of it from there.

Week 9: Voicemail message from Mr. W: "uh.... Mr. Good I'm going to need you to return your rental in the next 48 hours..." I panic and start looking for cars.
Voicemail from my loan company: "Mr. Good, this is your final notice, we need to reposess your vehicle." I call Mr. W and find that he has yet to contact my loan company, which means I'm two payments late and they still don't know my car has been totalled.
Letter from 5/3 bank, received on October 10th: "Mr. Good your account has been overdrawn. Please pay $170 in fees before Oct. 8 or your account will accrue further charges." I call Progressive and tell them that my car was totalled and that the insurance payment shouldn't have hit my account, much less my Hillsdale account. They are nice and give me back two months worth of insurance payments that I wouldn't have incurred had Mr. W called them to tell them the car was totalled. I buy a new car, return the rental (one month later), and leave a voicemail for Mr. W telling him to just void the check he originally wrote me and pay off my damn loan like he said he would.

Yesterday: Voicemail message from Mr. W: "uh... Mr. Good now that our business is settled I need you to go ahead and return your rental car." I called him back, told him I returned the car 48 hours ago and that he needed to pay off my loan. He said he had made a payment to the company, but that I would have to take care of the rest out of the original check he wrote me.

Last night: I answer the phone, "Hello, is this Mr. Good?"
"Yes it is..."
"This is Detective M I wanted to confirm that you are the owner of a '06 Chevy Aveo and I need to know where that vehicle is."
"I was the owner, the car is totalled and if the insurance company hasn't claimed it yet, it's at Expert's Only Collision in Colorado Springs, Colorado."
"Could you giv me the number of the body shop? It seems that Farm Bureau Insurance out of Denver thinks it's a little suspicious that your car is in the name of a deceased person. I've already talked to your step-mother."

Ich habe du nicht gesheisst.

I kid you not. That's actually what's been happening. I've had to buy a car on the assumption that I would some day get reimbursed for my accident, I've had to talk to people who wanted to reposess a totalled car, people who were insuring a totalled car, people who thought that I had stolen said car and totalled it, and Mr. W who probably still doesn't remember my name.

But here's the new ride:

And here's your Halloween clip of the day:

I'm going to head to a coffee house later today to watch the episode of Heroes I missed this past Monday. Hopefully that will put me in a better mood.