Trees: 2, Kate: 0

Many of you have probably heard the story from when we were little and John convinced me to play Marco Polo in the backyard instead of a pool. Basically it involved me running around the backyard with my eyes closed while yelling "Marco". John would yell "Polo" back and I was supposed to catch him. Being the MEANEST little brother ever, John intentionally ran me head-first into a tree. Anyway, the trees won that one, and they took another swipe at me a couple of weeks ago.

My car was parked in the lot by my building during a storm. It wasn't a bad storm by Midwesterner standards, but people here were freaking out. It was some rain and wind, but Jeremy and I didn't think too much of it. Anyway, it was dark when I left work and I was tired, so I came out of my building, got into my car and started to pull out of my parking spot. Just as I was turning to look over my shoulder, I noticed a piece of paper stuck to my windshield. Thinking it was a ticket, I got out of my car in a huff noting that my permit was CLEARLY visible through the windshield.

It turned out that the slip of paper was actually a business card from one of the campus police along with a note saying "A tree hit your car. I filed a report, it is number XXX. Please contact me if you have any questions or need any help". Hmmm. I looked up from the note and noticed that, yes, indeed my car had been smashed by a tree. Here is an overview of the damage to the poor little Vibe:



Passenger mirror detached from car



Big dent in the front panel - there were also giant dents in the roof and hood of the car - the tree clearly meant business.



Windshield smashed. It was actually worse than this picture makes it look. Yes, I looked through this and noticed (a) a piece of paper and (b) my permit, but never noticed THE GIANT SMASHED IN PART.


Side view again.

Anyway, apart from the sadness I felt for the Vibe and the near marital homicide when Jeremy asked "why did you park under a tree in a storm?" things went pretty well with getting the Vibe restored to its old self.

First of all, the campus cops were great! They filled out the report and cleaned the tree off of my car before I even knew anything happened. They were very nice about the whole thing.

Progressive insurance and the mechanic they sent us to were also amazing, but I will let Jeremy tell that part since he dealt with the insurance folks. I just wanted to share my photos of the destruction.

The Vibe is currently back home and actually looks great! The passenger side looks like new, and the shop also detailed the inside of the car which is definitely the cleanest it has been since I got it.  So all-in-all things turned out as well as we could have hoped.  Now I just have to figure out why the trees have it in for me.