Thousand-dollar ding

Yesterday as I was driving away from Aspen's school on my way to pick up Madi, suddenly a large white object smacked into my car- and made a loud THUMP. I hit the brakes (luckily there was no one behind me) and stopped, thinking some kid had thrown a snowball at my windshield. Then I realized it was over 50 degrees outside and there was no snow in sight, except up on the mountain.

It didn't take me too long to realize that there is a golf course just on the other side of the fence from where I was driving. And a lady walked up to me from the park, on the other side of the street, and asked, "Did that hit you??" She was carrying a golf ball. So I put two and two together. But two and two does not equal four. It equals almost $700 DOLLARS!!! Yep, the ball hit the hood of my car. And left a dent. And the paint is chipping off already.

There were two guys playing on the course just on the other side of the fence, upwind from where I got hit. They didn't come over to me to talk about it. They just kept playing. I didn't actually see them swing the club that hit the ball that hit my car. But I followed them to the clubhouse, because they were on the last hole, and I approached them. One of them was adamant that it was not him... the other one avoided me. Sound suspicious? Yeah, I thought so, too. But what could I do, since I didn't have proof? I walked into the golf shop, and the guy working there had me fill out an accident report then gave me the phone number of the course owner. Badically, the golf shop employee did nothing, even after I pointed out the highly suspected guys, who were walking quickly towards their car at this point, saying I was sure it was them. He did nothing, just told me to talk to Kevin- the owner of the course. Maybe there really was nothing more he could do, I dunno. So, of course, when I talked to Kevin, he pretty much told me that since I didn't have the information on who had done it, I was responsible for the payment (but he did feel really bad that it had happened, and offered to help pay some towards the repair).

Talk about frustrating. Does our car have a huge target on it or something, that says, "HEY! HIT ME WITH SMALL WHITE OBJECTS THAT WILL DENT ME AND CHIP MY PAINT!!!" because that seems to be what keeps on happening.

Not even a week after we bought the car last July, we were in Idaho. Jim took the car to fill it up with gas one Saturday evening, and some punk kids threw eggs at it and... you guessed it... chipped the paint. I asked the Collision Repair guy who gave me the $700 bid on the golf ball ding how much it would cost to repair the chipped paint from the eggs. Keep in mind, this is a circular area of chipping, like the outline of an oval... the size of an egg, of course... but there are no dents from it. The cost? $1500!!! No wonder the offices of these collision repair places have granite countertops, floors, stairways, and leather furniture in the waiting rooms. It's completely ridiculous.

Above: the $1500 repair. You can't even see the chipped paint from here... it's right on the strip near the roof above that rear window.

Below: the $700 repair. You can clearly see the dent from the golf ball. Teeny, right? It just makes me mad. Our insurance deductible is $500, so that teeny little ding is going to be VERY expensive.