Rant #4,045: Why Pick On Me?

I am on a real bad streak this year ...

And this time, it has nothing to do with my physical health, it has to do with my mental health, but directly--

It has to do with my car.

I have a 2020 Kia Optima, which means I have a six-year-old car that still runs pretty well.

But the elements can get to it, and this is what happened recently.

In my neck of the woods, they are doing a tremendous repaving project, one that stretches for several miles on the main road in my area--Route 110--and work which, evidently, stretches for miles up and down the road.

They tore off the top pavement, and are in the process of replacing it with brand new pavement, a project which has been taking several weeks to complete.

I use that road just about every day to transport my son back and forth to work and for many other things where I need my car to get from Point A to Point B.

Well, the road has been very torn up during the day, with the work to replace the top pavement being done at night, late at night when we are all in our beds and asleep.

Anyway, driving that road with the top pavement off during the day has been daunting, to say the least, with reams of smoke from what they have left us to drive on rising into the air, making our cars absolutely filthy, and making many drivers drive 10 miles slower than they normally drive.

Those are nuisances, to be honest with you, and most of us can handle these things.

But my car ran into something that it could not fend off.

Several days ago--I don't know how many days ago--a pebble or rock must have been spurted out by a car ahead of me, and it hit my windshield in a bizarre place, right behind the part of the window to the rear of my rear-view mirror in the middle of the windshield.

I suppose it happened during the evening, because it is a spot one never really looks at, and I have no idea how long the front window of the car has been damaged.

The fact of the matter is that the only reason I even saw it--since it is directly behind the mirror--was that during a day last week, I guess I looked in the mirror, and saw this cut in the window creeping behind the mirror.

Again, I have no idea when it happened, but it happened ...

And in the succeeding days, I saw that it was spreading.

I took the car to the local glass place--yes, that one--and they told me that I had to contact my car insurance, and that after that was done, I would be set up with an appointment.

So I contacted my insurance, and everything was set up for yesterday ...

And of course, based on this black cloud hovering over me, it took a minute or two during the appointment to realize that this was not going to be as easy as it appeared to be.

The technician came on time, took one look at the windshield, and told me--

"I can't do it. The cut has to be the size of a quarter, and we can shoot resin into it, which would prevent it from spreading, but since the cut has spread, what you need is a complete windshield replacement."

He told me that the local glass place site--which is the one I originally took it to--would call me "quickly" to set up another appointment, and he then drove off.

Of course, they never called me--I gave it a good hour--and then I called them, where I had to go through an AI assistant, who, on the third request, finally got me to a human operator.

I made a new appointment for Friday, but this appointment will cost me not only time, but dollars, too.

After I made the appointment, I received a text shortly thereafter alerting me that based on my insurance and my deductible, I would have to pay $500 out of pocket to get it done.

The original fix, using resin, would have cost me nothing, but since this is a much bigger job, it is going to cost me $500 to get it done ...

And they wanted payment NOW, so I used my credit card, which I only use in dire emergencies--

I guess that this is one of those dire emergencies.

As I am writing this, the appointment is coming up on Friday morning, so I just hope that this can be fixed.

But now I have a credit card bill, and while that might boost my credit, it will tap into money that I will have to locate, and pay this thing off as quickly as possible.

I just cannot win, everything I do that is right is wrong, and this cloud continues to hang over me as we enter the last six weeks of this horrid year.

And this time, it has to do with a pebble or rock that probably was the size of a coin that did this.

Heck, I drove 2,100 miles round-trip this summer on vacation, and never had one measly problem.

Now, close to home, I get hit.

Why pick on me?

I just don't know, but again, this year cannot end soon enough.