Pedley's Ponderings

Editor’s note: This column originally ran in the June 29, 2017 edition of the Sentinel-News. The editor’s 2012 Ford Focus is now completely paid off and rusting, and he wants a new Ford Bronco Sport.

Unfortunately, there are no taxis in northwest Iowa to take out his Focus while parked perfectly legally on the street.

Unless I blow off my hand with an M-80 sometime, July 4, 2014 will go down as the worst Independence Day of my life.

The holiday started off with potential. It fell on a Friday that year, so I decided to visit old college buddies in Iowa City for the three-day weekend. We planned on grilling out, watching fireworks and downing a few cold ones as we reveled in America and all its freedom.

Little did I know, I would return home four days later a broken man without a car.

The two-hour drive to Iowa City went relatively normal. The only oddity took place somewhere in Benton or Marion County as I cruised down 380 from Hampton, where I was living at the time. I looked up to see a lone man standing on an overpass, frantically waving a large American flag at the speeding traffic below. As it turned out, this strange individual and his grandiose display of patriotism would be one of the few highlights of my weekend.

I arrived in Iowa City around noon and immediately broke out the grill. My friends and I spent the hot, sunny day tossing the pigskin, playing Frisbee and hanging out on the deck. It was no-frills, but the company was good and the beer was cold.

I had temporarily parked my 2002 Mazda 626 in a stranger’s spot when I arrived at the apartment complex. Having been towed in Iowa City before and not wanting to pay $150 for nothing again, I moved it to the road once street parking opened up. I plopped it right next to my friends’ apartment building and planned to leave it there until Sunday. It was the only car on the entire block.

Unbeknownst to me, the decision would become the biggest mistake of that ill-fated weekend.

We all decided to doze off for a bit before heading downtown to watch the fireworks that night. My friend’s brother, Spencer, was the only one who stayed up.

About an hour in to my snooze, I was shaken awake by frantic yelling from the deck about my car getting totaled. Not being the gullible type, I didn’t take the bait. How rude of them to interrupt my slumber, I thought.

The yelling wouldn’t stop, however, so I forced myself awake to go look. A taxi van had indeed smashed into the back of my car – still the only vehicle on the block – and the driver was now standing on the road with a bewildered look on his face.

I surveyed the damage from the deck and headed down to the street. Apparently, one of the guy’s tires blew out at the “right” time and he was unable to avoid my car. The police were called to record the accident, as was the driver’s boss, who promptly fired him on the spot in an expletive-filled rant that rivaled the best fireworks show I’ve ever seen.

What followed was one massive headache for yours truly. Since the accident was by no fault of my own, I had to go through the taxi company’s insurance firm for everything. To make a long story short, it took me two weeks to get a rental and more than month before I was reimbursed for damages.

My friend, Brenden, had to take me back to Hampton four days after the accident. Because the universe can be cruel, a deer ran into the side of his car just four miles outside of town. It only took off the driver’s side mirror, but it was the last rearview mirror left on that old clunker – a different deer had taken off the other one, and the inside windshield mirror fell off long before. We drove away after realizing the car wasn’t really affected by the animal’s suicide attempt.

Brenden drove that Oldsmobile for two more years, but I never saw my Mazda again. It was totaled, towed away and presumably scrapped for parts. It didn’t deserve that ending, but it was the ending it got nonetheless.

The accident and ensuing insurance nightmare proved to be a miracle in disguise. Just two weeks prior I had watched my odometer roll over to 153,000 miles and cheekily thought, “I need to figure out how to accidentally total this thing and not be in it so I can get a down payment for a new car.”

I wound up getting my wish, but next time I think I’ll just save up or trade in.

Nick Pedley is the news editor of The Hartley Sentinel-The Everly/Royal News.