see, here's the problem ralph, you have several threes

this is just not my week.

yesterday vwoa told me to stop saying vwoa and today i got rear-ended while on my way back to work from burger king.

the picture to the right was taken at 12:51 as i was in the drive-thru at burger king while it was pouring rain. i was watching the rain and thought it was stupid that they designed the roof so that it extends only a few feet outward so that all the run-off drips down right on the cars and usually splashes into the open windows of the cars. why don't they just extend the roof out like 5 more feet to cover the whole car? and why don't they have a roof over the ordering menu/speaker so your car doesn't get wet while you order?

anyway, i got my food and drove down algonquin road. i was stopped at the red light at hanson road. there was a pickup truck a few feet in front of me and one or two cars in the lane to my right. i was out of gear and on the brakes and looking in my rear view mirror as i saw a dark car coming fast behind me. i realized it wasn't going to stop so i stood on the brakes to hopefully avoid getting pushed into the truck in front of me, then... *wham*

"what the fuck!"

i put the e-brake and the hazards on and walked back to his car. a... foreign... looking guy driving a small sedan. i asked if he was alright and he just said "sorry." there was a car directly behind his but it didn't appear to hit him. i looked at my rear bumper and there didn't seem to be much damage, but it was raining pretty hard so i couldn't get a good look. i noticed his front bumper was pushed in and downward. i asked for his insurance info but since people were honking at us as he was looking for it i told him to drive over to the parking lot across the street so we wouldn't cause another accident.

he gave me his license and insurance card and i copied everything down. i gave him his cards back and he asked "is ok?" so i said "yeah, you can go, i have all your information" and he drove away.

i drove back to work and filed a report on allstate.com. sma tells me i shouldn't have even told my insurance company and just called his provider, but anyway, an allstate representative called me back within a few minutes of submitting the report online and asked a few more questions. he setup an appointment for me to bring my car to some place in palatine ("is palatine close to you?" "uh, not really, but ok") on thursday for a claims adjuster to look at the damage.

after work it had stopped raining so i looked at the bumper again. there were scuffs most of the way across it with two big chips of the other guy's paint on it that came right off, but nothing really that bad (for what the impact felt like, at least). i looked at the bumper from the side and it doesn't look to be pushed in at all and is flush with the rear fender. hopefully the internal bumper shocks took all the abuse and the outer shell just needs to be repainted.

i stopped at the lake in the hills police department to file a report just to cover my ass. after trying to figure out whether that precise square footage where the collision occurred was in lake in the hills or algonquin, the officer looked at the bumper and said filing a report isn't mandatory in illinois unless the damage is over $500, and since the guy admitted fault and gave me all of his information, i probably wouldn't have a problem getting his insurance company to pay for it.

so if this week continues at its current pace, i am expecting to be robbed tomorrow, hit by a car on thursday, and maybe struck by lightning on friday.