A week or two ago, I went to get into my faithful 2019 Prius on a parking lot, and noticed that it had a puncture wound on the passenger side in front of the front tire.  It appears that, although the wound itself is relatively small, the entire front bumper piece will need to be replaced, and – as of now – although small, it is pretty unsightly. I have been the only driver of that car for months, and I know that I was not in an accident, and that I don’t remember running into a sharp item at a curb, or anything else that could have been the cause. My initial reaction was that someone had run into the car when it was parked. It didn’t happen when I discovered the problem, because at that time there were no cars near me. And I didn’t remember any time parking so near another car that this type of a wound seemed really possible.

I told Edie about it when I got home, and she thought she had seen it before, and that it did not happen the day that I spotted it. I guess that is possible, since it is on the passenger side, but it seemed at the time unlikely that I hadn’t noticed it.

But let’s assume that it is possible that I just did not see the tear, that I just hadn’t looked down at that exact spot. Let’s just assume that for a minute.

Last night, being in the middle of a very nice dream about an exhibit in a small art museum and talking to someone (in the dream) about all of the small art museums that I could think of, I woke up abruptly for unknown reasons. I looked at the clock, expecting it to say something like 5:30 a.m., and was surprised to see it was only 2:57. That surprise woke me up completely, and just lay there wondering if I would ever get back to sleep again, thinking about first one thing, than another. One of those things that I thought about was the damage to my car. How could it have happened?

I then had an “aha” moment. Unlikely perhaps, but “aha”, nevertheless. Is it possible that this injury to my car has been here since January 27? It was on January 27 that we had someone come to dig us out of the ice and snow storm that caused Washington to slow down for two weeks. You may remember the story (or may not, more likely). We had about 7 inches of hard, hard snow and a friend gave us a name of someone to call, which we did. It was a landscape company that also would do snow removal (for a hefty price).

Two men came, we told them we needed to get the walkway to the street, the walkway to the driveway, the driveway, and the sidewalks both on Davenport and on 32nd Street done. Whether I mentioned in particular the two cars parked in the driveway, I don’t remember, but my assumption was that if you clear the snow from the driveway, you also clear the snow off the cars. Otherwise, why clear the driveway? Right?

The two men, who seemed very nice, started to work. I was impressed, looking out the front windows, with their energy and hard work. I assumed that, when they were finished, they would knock on the door again, tell us they were done and ask us if everything looked okay, and probably ask for their money. I didn’t look out of the window again, but after a few hours, wondered why we hadn’t heard from them. I saw that their truck was gone – perhaps they went to lunch?

They didn’t return and about 3:30, I went outside to make sure that everything had been done. All of the walkways and the driveway had been done perfectly. But the cars were untouched, and I spent an hour or so myself freeing my car, and a few days later, freeing Edie’s. When we got an invoice from the landscape company, I told them what had happened, and suggested a price that knocked about 1/3 off their price. I did not know what the reaction of the company would be, and was surprised when their reaction was “okay, but don’t ever call us again”. Jeez, I thought.

This was, as you might know or recall, a very unusual snow storm, or perhaps it was a very unusual ice storm. The 7 or so inches of snow was packed so hard that you could walk on top of it, without sinking in at all. So shoveling it was not a normal job where you could push some or all of aside without a lot of heavy lifting. Nothing could be pushed, and nothing could be shoveled without first breaking apart the ice. It was very hard work. Not for the fainthearted, as they say. For obvious reasons.

What if????

What if, when breaking up the ice to clear the driveway, our shovelers had used something hard (they undoubtedly did) which, when they were working so diligently near the car, had actually hit, and torn, the car? Perhaps, they didn’t even notice what they did until they finished the driveway? Then, when the saw the car damaged, they decided two things: first, they were not going to knock on the door and ask us to look at their work, and second, they were not going to stick around and do the cars themselves for fear that, at some point, we might come out to see how they were doing. They simply decided: let’s get out of here as quick as we can!

Likely? I don’t know. Possible? I think so. Another alternative? I can’t think of one.

This will cause us the deductible on our auto insurance policy (I think that is $250) and some aggravation. I don’t think it will affect our premiums, based on the insurer’s accident forgiveness policy (if this is even considered an accident). And I hope we don’t have to leave our car (fully able to be driven, obviously), but can bring it in when the part is ready to replace the old part. We shall see.

I also thought that maybe we should just get a new car and trade our old friend in, so he can be rejuvenated or put to pasture. I remember years ago hearing an ad on the radio which started with, “If you have a flat tire, you don’t go out and get a new car, do you?” As if the answer to that question was obvious.