Goodbye, old girl

Well, it finally happened. Cressida is gone. Let me first point out that she was an old gal. And I would never hurt her on purpose. (and never did)

It rained this afternoon. Right before I left work. I was driving behind someone (car A) on a two-lane road (one lane each way). We were just approaching an S-curve to the right/left where the road opens to a 4-lane road around the runway of Addison Airport. Just as the car in front of me started going into the new lane, I saw another car (car B) slide sideways in front of us. Car A had no chance, but I was able to hit the brakes.

Because it was wet (and because of the particular road we were on), no one had any traction. The two cars smashed together ahead of me and I just gripped the wheel for dear life. Because car A had begun getting over, I only hit half the car and rotated a bit clockwise. But by this time, car B had bounced off of A and swung around to what is now my left. She bounced off my rear and flattened the rear left tire.

As fate would have it, I was now facing a collision repair center. One of the workers happened to see the whole thing happen and ran over to make sure everyone was OK. Once I took note of my situation, (alive: check; no broken body: check; no broken glass: check; car is motionless: check) I put the car in reverse and took my foot off the brakes to see if I could get out of the middle of the road. I was stuck. As it turned out, car B's bumper came off and ended up under my rear bumper. And because I was now wedged under A's rear, I was pined in. I got out of the car and saw that the other two girls were fine. Shaken up, but fine.

Cressida isn't worth that much. We bought her 2 years and 31,000 miles ago for only $3300. She was almost 20 years old and starting to fall apart a bit. It was only a matter of time, frankly.

For more pics, click here.

You know anyone who's giving away a free car? Dibs.