Rain Rain Go Away!

I'm going to make an assumption that the East Coast is reporting on the ridiculous deluge of rain that SOCAL is experiencing since we report on all your snow! So, you may have heard or seen that relentless rain started last Thursday and is supposed to last until this Wednesday. LA is not built for such large amounts of rain, creating flash flooding and making driving through LA even more difficult than usual! Originally the plan was for some friends from San Diego to come up and visit me, but I decided to go down to them since they were experiencing less rain...I couldn't fully escape it :( Visiting with Emily and Kai over some pizza and lasagna in Little Italy was definitely what I needed to help boost me in my resolve to get out of my "I'm so lonely at Christmas Blues". I then went back to Emily's where we watched a movie and looked at some pics she had taken of me when I'd visited her for my birthday. Emily and her husband Vic have recently started their own photography business and it's amazing to see how far they've come in the past 6 months! I knew Emily from college, where she actually went by her middle name Raley, and then later ran into her at my church in Raleigh. All too quickly she met Vic and moved out to California where she excels in her Cali fashion sense and now in photography! Check out their work on their facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/bluepolystudios


Anyway, I got up this morning with the intent to get back to LA and drop a friend off at the airport and do some Christmas shopping with another only to make it into LA, to then stop for gas, and proceed to get into my first fender bender :( Not exactly what I was planning on for the day, especially since I'd just spent 3+ hours driving from San Diego into LA amidst the bad weather, flooded highways, and heavy traffic without harm. So here's my side of the story that I submitted as a written statement to my insurance agent:
     I was backing out of the spot at Pump#2, this is a very busy and small gas station. I looked over both my shoulders for cars and pedestrians, seeing no one I backed up slowly, only making it about 6-8 feet before I felt resistance and heard a tap. I looked over my shoulder to see a car behind me who appeared to be backing out of a parking spot and a woman walking out of the gas station, towards the passenger door, about to get in. I immediately motioned to the couple that I was going to pull into a parking spot, which I did, gathered my insurance & registration and walked over to their car. I apologized for the inconvenience and informed them I was going to call the police. They are an older Korean couple who did not speak enough English to converse with me about what they thought happened. While waiting on hold for the police I offered for them to sit in their car since it was raining but they did not understand my words and hand motions. I am the only one who contacted the police via phone and provided the basic information, and requested if possible someone who spoke Korean to assist. The officers came, only to inform us that they do not file police reports unless someone is injured, but they did assist in information exchange. Above is the information provided to me. Again I apologized to the couple, informed them that I was going to contact my insurance, and wished them a Merry Christmas, but they did not have the courtesy to do so back. I spoke with the attendant at the gas station and he was unsure if the surveillance camera would capture the accident, but told me to contact Susan his supervisor on Thursday.


I am ok, and my car isn't damaged so much that I can't drive it. Initially I was just frustrated at having to deal with this stress (in the rain!) while trying to be as polite as I could with this couple who barely spoke any English! I learned a new pet peeve of mine today: If you are going to LIVE and DRIVE in my country then SPEAK my language! Since LAPD doesn't help resolve the situation it will be interesting to see what this couple reports to their insurance agent as to what their side of the story is. I really feel it was one of those flukes where we both looked, didn't see anyone and backed into each other. I held myself together during the moment, and feel that I contacted everyone I needed to, took pictures, got all the information I'd need for my report then came home, filled my dad in and cried...a lot...only to hear my dad yelling at me on the phone. I hadn't hung up! Oops! So now we're both upset and honestly, I think I was crying more over missing my family than my car situation. And the damage to my car isn't that bad. It's a linear dent on my back passenger bumper and some missing paint. I can't help but believe that God did have His hand over my accident, as evidenced by:
a) It could have been A LOT worse! It would have been much worse if I would have had a fender bender while on the highway with all that rain and hydroplaning it's amazing I made it back to LA!
b) It happened in a safe place where I was not alone or stranded on the side of the road
c) NO ONE was injured as it was a tap at a very low speed
d) Just last week I received a check from the city of Cumberland to cover damage to the passenger side of my car caused by city property
and e) I had no yet had my car repaired from above mentioned damage so hopefully I can get all this taken care of at once!


So for any skeptics out there, how can you argue with this? Could all these factors just line up as fate?  I'll keep you all posted on what happens as I'm sure our insurance companies will have to duke it out since we don't speak the same language! Hopefully I'll get credit for being a responsible citizen, kind to some non-English speaking fellow citizens, and for my very detailed report and photos that I submitted! And I'll try to post pics later when my internet decides to cooperate!