Um, you guys? My car was the victim of a dastardly hit-and-run last week. I went to my dad’s and stepmom’s for the weekend, had a lovely time, returned to Savannah, parked my car on the street outside my house just like everybody else in town does, went to bed, walked out to it the next day for my drive to work, and saw that the whole back end had been smashed the fuck in.

And I am not talking about a little scrape that might happen if someone parallel parks badly and taps you, or even a small dent if someone sideswiped you while in, like, second gear. No, I am talking about the entire back-left corner smashed in, with the trunk popped open and the bumper hanging off and the tires flattened. Someone had obviously driven around the square and then immediately floored it in order to have gotten up to such a speed in the short block where my car was parked.

I seriously had to stop and stare and gulp air for about seven seconds for it all to sink in. My car! My new, five-month-old car, that I had just left the night before! Surrounded by other cars, by a street full of cars! WTF!

I cried a little. My roommate gave me a ride to work, where I spent the next six hours catatonically handing out biscuits to customers and telling my sad sad story to any coworker who happened to stand near me. After work I called the cops. Two large burly Georgia cops came and met me by my sad shattered wreck of a car (that was now also a good ten feet forward of where I had parked it, so hard had it been hit), wrote up a report, and listened to me rant and rave about being a taxpaying, working citizen, living on a nice street, obviously a drunk speeding driver, the safety of children, my non-fault and now being responsible for the repairs deductible, blah blah blah.

I asked if they could scrape the paint chips off my car and analyze them, or piece together the parts that had fallen off the other car and track it via part number, and they responded, “This isn’t CSI.” I asked if they could put out a call for all local repair places to report any cars needing their front-left corners fixed in the next weeks and they said, “They’ll probably have it fixed at some underground chop-shop that we’ll never know about.” Well, thank you officers.

The insurance company handled everything super-quickly. (Shout-out to Progressive.) I had a mini-panic attack when the adjustor told me the car might have to be TOTALLED (!!), but he later told me it would be fixable. In three weeks, and for four thousand dollars. Damn. Progressive must hate me right about now. All I am liable for is the $250 deductible, which my parents are sending me anyway, because they pity me and the sad remains of my shattered life as of late. (See how well I am taking this whole flunking-out-of-art-school and then having my car smashed thing? Not.)

Also the insurance company gave me a free rental. They are being incomparably helpful and efficient. I now have a big American car to tool around in for the next month.

Photos of both the new house and the sad, smashed car to follow, as soon as I find my digital camera’s connecting cord in the mountain of crap I used to call my bedroom floor. I will survive!