LISTEN TO ME WHEN I SAY THIS!

So I totaled my car. Seriously. The crazy road to drive up to Schweitzer that I wrote about a few blogs ago took my Jeep down. I was trying to be nice and had offered a co-worker a place to stay b/c on the weekends she has a 2 hour commute. I told her to meet me at the base, meaning to me, the bus stop at the bottom of the mountain. She took base to mean the village at the top of the mountain. I had a gut feeling that I shouldn't drive the road and typically I don't, but I didn't want to be whiny and make her drive back down. So I took it on.

Seriously, look at that sign for the turn up ahead. That is a U-turn! How is that legal??!?!

I had my car in 2nd gear and in 4-wheel drive and as we were coming out of the last switchback turn, about 3 minutes from the end of death road and I hit ice and went reeling into a rock wall. Thankfully myself and my passenger were fine, but my car sadly was not. The rocks decided to rip off my bumper and crack my radiator.


When the sheriff and tow truck came to grab my car they added insult to injury and asked questions such as "were you driving too fast?" or even worse "were you drinking?" The answer to both of those questions is no. Rubbing salt even further into the wound they both commented on how I had better tires on my car than their cars combined and that I hit the only portion of road that had a rock wall. Had I just sunk into a snowbank, I would have been fine.

I truly believe in the power of positive thought and that you can create your own utopia by making "when I" statements versus "if I" statements. If I haven't fallen into a downward spiral of negativity, haven't been mean, snarky, lazy or rude in the past year, then how could this have happened to me? How could the karmic gods deem it necessary for me to learn a lesson, especially when I am 3,000 miles from my support network. I don't even have a boyfriend here I can make be my chauffeur!

The caveat of positive thinking is that it only feels good when you're the one spewing it. Plenty of you back home have been trying to talk me down from my rage at being in the wrong place at the wrong time with positivity. Adages of "this happened for a reason, probably b/c you would have died in a car crash driving back home" (morbidly thoughtful!) or "be thankful you have the means to fix the mess, some people are completely SOL when they lose they're car." And yes of course now I have the excuse to buy the red Volkswagen Passat I have desperately been eyeing for the past 2 years. That I definitely can't wait for.

It still doesn't take the sting away from losing my car. You don't realize how much your car means to you, b/c how could a hunk of metal that is used simply to get you to point a and back be a physical scrapbook? Well it definitely is. The sentimental value of my car is almost worth telling the insurance agency to take a hike and paying out of pocket the costs to fix the car. And really it's not like my whole front end was demolished, the value of the car is just low enough to not warrant paying for $4,500 dollars in damages. Anyway, my Jeep got me through high school and off-roading with my friends and copious amounts of hockey equipment, carting my stuff back and forth to Orono and lastly it drove me 3,000 miles out to Idaho. That car was the perfect car for me and one of the best purchases. That and it kept me safe...I hit a rock wall and I have no scratches or broken bones.

So now I am back to good old days of being a Freshman in high school and begging for rides to and from work and not being able to do things at the drop of a hat. I am very fortunate though that Schweitzer is kick ass and they gave me a Ford Escape to take on my days off. Typically managers could care less about a traumatic injury or event that happens on their property as long as it doesn't effect their workman's comp insurance, but my directors have been awesome. They have let me vent and pose all of the questions I wrote above and they're willing to go out of their way to pick me up for work. I am really lucky.


I had to go and clean the Jeep out just the other day and give the insurance company permission to take it away. I asked the mechanic, Erik, (who is one of the nicest people I have ever met and has been so helpful throughout this whole process) what they were going to do with the car. He matter-of-factly stated they were going to take it to a junk yard and gut it. WHAT! EXCUSE ME. YOU'RE GOING TO DO WHAT WITH MY CAR??? It would at least give me comfort to know that my car was in the back of NorthEast Auto Body so I could know where it was at all times instead of being in Sandpoint, ID for the rest of eternity. Oh well, no such luck.

It was me who wanted to learn how to stop being so uptight and I wanted to learn how to let go, well I just lost a huge part of the average person's definition of what gives them freedom...the ability to go places and do things. I think this a great way to learn to go with the flow. After all that is what the possibility of all my rides are resting on! I also don't need a car for the next 6 months when I go out to Germany so this isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things. It sucks...it sucks a lot, but I just have to get over this hump and soon I will be cruising in a fly Passat!

So a toast to the Jeep...one that took everything I threw at it and ran beautifully until the very end! And this is also a huge lesson and shout-out to trusting your gut. If you feel like you shouldn't, don't. You don't want to end up with a cracked radiator. LISTEN TO ME WHEN I SAY THIS!