What a Difference a Day Makes!

The song from The Temptations called, "What a Difference a Day Makes" can be so true in so many situations. It is something that came to my mind as this past week unfolded. Let me explain that 6 days ago my husband and I were t-boned in our car. It was a great car, we had no issues with it, we owned it with no more car payments and some talk of the possibly in the future if it started costing us money, we may trade it in for a small SUV to help in transporting dogs easier to Doggie Day Care, as well as their crates if we went on a trip with them. With nothing in the immediate future on the line, we were quite happy.

Then "CAR-BOOM!" That horrible sound of a car crash, especially when you are in one of the cars.

In dealing with the stress of the accident and the aftermath, thankfully, no one involved had to be taken to the hospital. With my side taking the brunt of the crash but not on my door, the soreness for me set in. It could have been so much worse. There is so much physical and mental stress involved once this happens. 

We dealt with waiting for the police and ambulance, not being allowed to have our insurance company call a tow truck because the local police have a policy (money making scheme if you want my opinion) of calling tow trucks and having it towed to where they say.) Then, someone has to pay another tow truck driver to come and receive the vehicle, after we go over and sign a release form so that another company, the one our insurance wanted to use, can tow it to the body shop. I have since found out this came to about $500 with both tow trucks involved and the day that the car sat on the lot. Simply outrageous. We worked on our mood elevators a lot.

We got over to sign for the release and went back to see it and I could feel the stress all over again. The pictures do not do the damage justice. The whole rear of the car was actually twisted in a metal mess from the impact. The back door was even jarred open with a gap and could not be pulled opened. It was at this time that we noticed some items were missing (stolen) and at this stage our elevators were in the frustration, irritated, angry and violated stages. We took turns pulling each other up as high as we could as we worked our way through this sordid mess.

Time was needed for the appraiser to get to where our car was taken in order to assess the damage. It was declared totaled. We were given the amount of money that we would receive for it. On one hand it seemed to be a very low number, but when you look at it instead, as if we were going to trade it in before the crash, it actually was more than half of what the Blue Book value was. Gratitude wins out again.

That news did not come until later on Thursday night. Along with print outs of what we had to take to have notarized with the Title and then mail off with their FedEx label. More time consuming errands for us to take care of. Steve asked if we wanted to go ahead and look at BMW and possibly Volvo while we were out and in the immediate area. And we did, sort of...there was a car at BMW that lit up Steve's eyes. And, I must admit, it was exactly in the size range that I was thinking of. At first, Steve kept asking if I really thought that we wanted and needed an SUV. It was a 10 on my scale of what we needed (probably only a 5 on Steve's scale). Really, though, I did not think that we would be getting one this soon. We loved his 3 series sedan. It was not giving us major problems until a careless driver decided to accelerate into the back side of us. 

Steve's eyes and his English composure changed as he drove this x3 SUV. It was a 2020 and sort of in the price range that we were thinking. However, Steve asked about pre-owned certified cars. It seems as though they had just brought that program back to BMW therefore it was not a lot to choose from. Being the good customers (repeat from 6 cars purchased from this same salesman) that we are, our incredible salesman went out to check and he had a courtesy car 3 series in the exact color that Steve loved (blue metallic) and it had all the bells and whistles as the brand new one, except it had a few extra things added to it. Plus, we did not have the depreciation factor added in. It had just under 5,000 miles on it. 

Leaving BMW, we knew that we had a good deal. It was the end of the month. Our salesman needed this deal and we have had so many deals thrown our way in prior auto purchases, that there was not even a need to work on negotiations for this car. We were up front that we were going to look at Volvo and Lexus and maybe another one before deciding. We had a rental car from the Insurance company for another week. And if worse came to worse...we could make it on one car if we had to. There is always Uber or Lyft.

Talking it over, we both decided that there was no need to go to any other car place. I looked up pre-certified in the Volvo and Lexus dealers and the deals were not great. All were 2018 and much higher mileage. So there ya have it. We called Michael, our salesperson, back and said that we would be back over on Saturday to pick it up. He told us by 1 and with the dogs in day care we would be fine as long as we could be out by 3:15. 

As it turned out, my car started having a tire pressure sensor light coming on and it would not reset the air pressure. So we called Michael to see if it was possible to come a little earlier since we had to be in for my car. Being the good guy that he is, he said to just come on. As we got there, thinking it just needed air...oh NO! There was a hole in the tire. PLUS, the other front one was low tread so there you have it.

We could not meet with Michael on the purchase deal until we went back home picking up all of our information to make this deal happen. Fortunately, BMW gave us a loaner car for the time it took us to get home, pick up the details and return to make the purchase, roughly, one hour!

What a difference a day makes! Twenty-four little hours. Thanks, Temptations for making that song come to my mind. I also think of the song, "Money, Money, Money, Money" by the O'Jays. We were giving it away; to BMW today. Something that you really do not have a choice, for the most part. 

Mood elevator comes in to play here. Choose your mood and work on that. There really is no in between.

This jpeg says it all. The awareness is the key to reading your human dashboard. ( I thought that was pretty clever, seeing that I was talking about this in "car terms." It meant for us to be grateful, insightful, creative, hopeful, appreciative, patient, having a sense of humor to the best of our ability and to be flexible. If we remained in the red zone of being frustrated, irritated, anxious, etc. where would that take us. I can tell you where: Nowheresville! 

So here we are on Sunday going out to our first place, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, in our new x3 BMW. WOW! Did it feel good? Hell, yes!

PS  This was the first time that Steve was able to drive HIS new x3 because I was the one who drove it home, while he stayed to pay for my tires and bless his heart...he drove my car home. I love him so much!