The Path of Least Resistance
When you experience resistance, you find the lessons that you are meant to learn.
~Jon Gordon
I waited for the green light. Oracle and Wetmore.
A Chevy Tahoe SUV hit me from behind.
“Shit happens,” a friend poopooed my dilemma. Really? How helpful.
Footnote: In 1996, before the internet made everything less complicated, my two teenage children were in a horrific car accident. That nightmare included 3 years of hospital stays, ten surgeries, and a lawsuit that cost State Farm nearly $500,000 plus attorneys fees, and guess what? I did not sit on the goddamn computer or hang on a cell phone for hours on end attempting to file a claim. My local State Farm insurance agent did something called … his job!
At the scene of my fender bender, I called the Tucson police, “Is anyone hurt? Just get the drivers information and file a claim.”
No cops.
I took photos of her car, my car, her insurance card, and filed a online claim with Geico. God forbid that a real person would take a claim, not even a gecko.
I waited.
The next week, I called the contact number on the insurance card and was placed on hold for 50 minutes. Finally, a claims agent answered. Doors slammed and dogs barked in the background. I was informed by a distracted teenager, that is who I imagined, the driver who ran into me had not responded to the single attempt to get her side of the story, therefore, it would be eight days before liability could be assigned.
“I’m really sorry but there is nothing I can do to help you until liability is established.”
“Is there a benefit to not responding to a inquiry from an insurance company?”
“Not really.” Only to make my life more complicated because that bitch was texting and ran into the back of my car.
Ten days passed. No word.
A second call to Geico was equally helpful. Kids played in the background. Doesn’t anyone have someone called a babysitter anymore? Or an office?
“I suggest you file with your company.” Oh my God, now I’m paying a deductible?
I uploaded more photos of the back of my car. The only way I could be found at fault is if I had backed into the SUV at twenty miles per hour. It’s perfectly obvious that I’m the innocent party.
I decided to file a claim with American Family Insurance Company. Another phone call with a very long wait time. The company I pay every month, hoping I never use it.
Eventually, I had a real conversation with a human. Finally!
The American Family claims agent assured me that she opened a claim and the body shop would receive the paperwork within minutes. We both looked up the collision center online to make sure she had the correct location. The next step would be a estimate on the work to be completed. Yeah, now I’m getting somewhere!
I jumped in my immortal Soul, and crept across Tucson in major congestion on a Friday afternoon.
The temperature outside was 109 degrees. Inside my body, my temper rose with each road construction site and lane closure. I perspired like a blacksmith and swore like a sailor.
It took nearly an hour to arrive at the Kia Collision Center. I had called ahead, and was told service was on a first come basis. No appointments. The hours listed as 9 to 4. It was one o’clock. The receptionist started to say something about the adjusters — were busy, come back on Monday. I gave her my best/worst teacher glare. She handed me a clipboard.
I waited. For nearly three hours.
“We have no information on file,” the sweat-soaked-over-weight young man said. He studied his cell phone. Probably looking at porn.
“Can’t you complete the estimate and the paperwork today? I’ll circle back to my insurance company on Monday.”
“Ya okay. We’re booked out till mid-August. And, getting parts is a problem. The warehouses are empty since the pandemic.” He didn’t bother to look up from his phone. Give me that goddamn phone! Son, look at me when you’re speaking. Dickhead!
“Excuse me while I kick my own ass!”
Resistance. I’ve lived there before. That unpleasant place where I feel my life isn’t fair. Once I move into resistance, my experience on planet Earth takes a nose dive. Complete victimhood mode. I rant and complain to anyone and everyone I encounter. My friends don’t answer their phones. My neighbors cross the street. They pretend to study a fascinating specimen of coyote scat.
I take it personally.
What lesson do I need to learn? Again.
I cause my own suffering by trying to control circumstances that are out of my wheelhouse.
There is a pandemic.
Climate change has resulted in extreme weather conditions that recently destroyed thousands of cars all over the country.
The economic backlash of auto manufacturing plants closed down during COVID is a major factor in not being able to order parts that were once readily available.
Insurance company employees are working from home and probably will do so from now on.
Like it or not, the damn internet is here to stay.
Finally, if I want my car repaired, and I do, I will need to follow up on the process. And, it’s going to take a shit load of time.
Shit happens. It’s not personal.
