Flippin' Jerk

It’s been a year for drunken assholes in cars. A few days after New Year’s, I was walking home from work one night when a stretch limo went by with a drunken idiot hanging out the window shouting at everyone he saw, “Hey! I won the lottery! Fuck you!” Nice to see that he’s putting his hard-earned winnings to good use. Regardless of how much this douchebag won, it’ll be gone by June.

But that wasn’t nearly as annoying as what happened Thursday night. I was in my usual spot, slingin’ drinks for the peeps when I got a phone call from my upstairs neighbor, Cara. Now, in the three-plus years that Cara’s lived above me, she’s only called me at work two times: Once when there was a fire and once when there was a scary guy sitting on the steps outside. So I knew right away it wasn’t good.

“Someone hit your car,” Cara said, and so, with Lysa covering me at the bar, I ran back home with Neel as my witness and restraint. About ten fire engines and another dozen cop cars filled the are surrounding the scene.

Seems that someone driving a brand spankin’ new 2007 Mercedez Benz decided that the best way to break it in was to get hammered and go speeding through the crammed, narrow streets of Hoboken NJ, making a too-fast turn off of Bloomfield and onto 10th St, at which point he “saw a bright white light,” slammed into a parked Saab, flipped up on his side and skidded into my Jeep (as well as the car parked behind me).

The damage to the Saab was substantial. The entire driver’s side was pretty much wiped out, and the rear bumper was pushed into the tire. I was comparatively lucky. He somehow only put a giant dent in my rear passenger side panel. He barely missed breaking the tail light and the window and bumper are unscathed. Still, as I watched the guy fail his sobriety test, I did fantasize about clocking him as the cops put the cuffs on him.

The funniest (okay, funny) part of the incident came when the cops asked me to move my car so they could flip the Benz back onto its wheels. I shouted (yes, SHOUTED) at the police, “I DON’T WANNA LOSE MY PARKING SPACE!! IT’S AFTER MIDNIGHT IN HOBOKEN!!!” I relented, but stuck around long enough to reclaim it after the tow truck took das Deutsches wagon away. See? I told you people how premium parking is in this tiny hamlet!!

The irony is, just one day earlier, as I was driving to Target (a local shopping emporium), I was reveling in the fact that I’ve had my car for two and a half years in the most congested, overpopulated parking town in the country and nothing’s happened to it. In fact, one of the reasons I chose a Liberty is that its design makes it fairly resistant to the kinds of dings that occur in a town where double parking and pressed bumpers are commonplace.

So Friday, I called my insurance company, went to the police station for a copy of the report and now the game of “who’ll pay” begins. Oh, and the “funny” postscript: Turns out the guy works for Mercedes. The car he smashed (and oh, is it smashed) belongs to the company.

So, I’m sure they’re thrilled.