March was here!
The house was full of spackle dust but we had heat that worked, new baseboards that looked nice in the front room1 and money in the bank for a new roof, if we could but track down a roofer.
What to do of a Saturday evening? Why, to drive over to Smithtown and eat a very late lunch at a small crepe restaurant.
And the crepes were indeed lovely, as were the hazelnut lattés.
I was feeling good as we drove home. We turned onto our street, and tootled down it at a sedate 30 mph2 with Joni Mitchell bleating about Ladies of the Canyon and street musicians. All was well with the world.
Which was when Mrs Stevie let out a shreik and I looks over to see the front of a large SUV about an inch from the passenger side door coming over for a hug.
There commenced the lamest T-bone crash in history. I was doing 30. The SUV was doing whatever it was doing, not super speed at any rate. Had we been speeding we'd have bounced off each other, but as it was the SUV hit my car's front wheel, then gouged a nice path down the entire side of the car ending up with a nice ding in the rear wheel3.
We stopped to exchange information and that is when we discovered that the driver was a minor, and his passenger was just 18. The driver, I should add, was mortified and couldn't stop apologizing.
Both Mrs Stevie and I were concerned. Not only were these two lads very young, but they were Hispanic and we weren't, which could result in some unfortunate misunderstandings of the sort that had characterized that nice President Trump's tenure if we weren't very careful to avoid them.
First order of business was to ask if everyone was OK, did we need an ambulance and so forth. Then I called 911 and asked for a police officer to come and take down the details as the damage to my car looked both extensive and expensive. Then we made sure that the young driver not only provided his details, but got ours too. We insisted he photograph both vehicles as we were doing. No one had died and there was no need to have the whole thing spiral out of control. We were once young ourselves after all. I can't speak for Mrs Stevie but I was flashing back to a rear-ender I perpetrated on the South Circular Road back before electricity.
We wanted to call a parent, but the lads were adamant that there was no need. Mrs Stevie said the boys were aware that when the driver's mother found out about her car, she would revoke all driving privileges, and they were just starting their Saturday night out. I sympathized.
The police officer came and given the youth and demographic background of the young lads we stuck close to ensure that things stayed as pleasant as they could be. The officer was terse at first, and I'm sure that being on duty on a Saturday night was part of that, but he cheered up immensely when he heard a call on the radio for all officers not currently busy to go to the scene of a bad accident.
"They'll be scraping up bodies off the road for that one" he said, and cracked a smile as he turned to get our addresses. He was excused the grim scene on account of the prior accident, you see.
He was also keen to call a parent, but didn't force the issue once he ascertained that we had tried to get that too, and the young driver was not being coerced in any way. The passenger meant that any legalities involved were all properly sorted by the presence of a 'responsible adult'. It was clear none of us had been drinking, so the officer really only had to fill out his report.
Which was how I ended up driving a loaner car for two weeks while the Steviemobile II was in dock getting new wheels, new doors and cripes-knows what else4.
It wasn't all bad. The other guy's insurance paid for all the damages, and the loaner, while being a smaller car, had adaptive cruise and self-steer.
The former was great. Set the cruise for 50 mph in town and it would follow the traffic ahead ot the best distance and speed.
The latter was a royal pain that took me several hours to figure out and turn off. The wheel was fighting my road position habits. To check that it wasn't just my crappy driving habits I found a deserted stretch of curvy highway and let the thing steer itself. Two near excursions into the woods at the roadside persuaded me that the technology needed work.
I was getting quite intrigued by the long strip of metal that the builders had simply dropped inside the baseboard they had replaced5 and after a lengthy search online and a dig through the trash pile left from the construction I found that the loose bit was a damper that was supposed to be clipped to an odd-looking lug on the cover-support thingies.
I fished it out with some trouble, figured out how it was supposed to work and, with only the help of some Class Two Words of Power got it attached where it was supposed to go. Result. The cover however was missing a splice plate6. It took almost the entire month to track down the only supplier of that part - the same bloke who had sold me the Aquastat Relay7.
I tried mightly to source one somewhere - anywhere - else but it was no-go, so I made another trip to the store, where the experience was significantly different. Not only did he have the part, he gave it to me gratis, which was nice of him.
I fitted it, and was only moderately annoyed when, two days later, I found the missing part on a high shelf where the builder had left it.
Still, March was nearly done, and it would soon be nice weather. Time to get the roof sorted out.
- But had a puzzling loose rattley strip of metal inside them↑
- the actual speed limit thereabouts↑
- It reminded me of the scene in Galaxy Quest where the ship scrapes slowly down the side of the spacedock while everyone cringes↑
- I no longer care to ask↑
- And nice it is too↑
- used to join two short cover plates into one long one↑
- dammit↑
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