The Drive of Shame

So, as perceptive readers of this blog will have noted, I managed to take out the entire rear window of my minivan this past weekend, amidst all the DIY hysteria. Fortunately nothing was hurt other than my pride and my wallet ($500 deductible, you know). Today was the appointed day to get it fixed, finally. Initially my insurance company had deemed it drive-able. My DH got on the phone with them and explained about the micro-shards of glass all over the car, how the plastic covering kept trying to rip off no matter what tape we used, and they changed their minds and let me get a rental vehicle.

For four days I have been tooling around in a Jeep Liberty with the kids. I have to say it is a sporty drive and it has some eye candy design features, such as the swoopy styling of the hoodline and the neat-o pop up glass rear window and swing-arm rear door. This particular model has some choke issues, which the rental salesperson yammered about the vacuum fuel system yada yada, going to get it fixed, yada yada yada. Whatever, I don't care as long as it runs and doesn't cut out on me. And it has four wheel drive, so for the span of about ten nanoseconds DH & I contemplated getting a babysitter and (as a neighbor put it), "goin' Jeepin'". However, the rational brain clicked in with numerous objections, such as, we don't even know where people can (legally) go 4x4-ing around here, and having never done so previously what the heck would we do if we got stuck? So that was a no-go from the get-go.

Anyway, this morning dawned and I had made arrangements with our neighbor to watch the kids while I drove the van, complete with flapping semi-translucent plastic, to the repair shop eight miles away to get it fixed. I felt like I had a scarlet letter "S" tattooed on my forehead, "Stupid!" writ large across the sides of the van. I had to stop twice to reattach the plastic to the van, and once to take off the shower curtain liner I had affixed with some twist-ties to the top rack as added insurance against glass potentially falling off. Most of the glass had fallen off already, but we did not knock the rest down and I didn't want to endanger other drivers, nor did I want to get pulled over for littering broken tempered glass. I had 4 mil plastic taped up with duct tape (use what you have, right?) but found quite quickly that it had to be amended with plain old Scotch tape (the only kind I had in the car). And the top half of a shower curtain liner, while a good idea to keep the rain out, was not the best at local street speeds. I found I could only achieve a top speed of 40 mph before the plastic was threatening to leave the vehicle entirely, which would not have been good.

Therefore, I drove with more than a little trepidation, at just 40 mph, watching like a hawk to make sure my plastic covering didn't abandon ship and mask another driver's view. Visions of a semi-transparent plastic obscuring another car's windshield and causing a crash made me question the wisdom of leaving it intact, but then again I did not want to be littering glass on cars either! And of course I felt like every car behind me somehow knew it was my fault that my window was gone. As people passed me I was alert for any stares or looks as I crept toward my destination.

And it's not like I don't know that EVERYONE has done something like this. I have had neighbors coming out of the woodwork to tell me about their own self-inflicted accidents with their cars. It just smarts a bit when you do it yourself...and having to drive your own damaged car to the repair shop is just the final twinge. I am waiting for the call now to retrieve my repaired car...it can't come soon enough for me!