Oh Yeah No!

A three-point turn went horribly wrong last night.


I pulled into a driveway so I could turn around, but apparently I missed the small brick retaining wall which I demolished, Kool-Aid style. Crap. I turned off the car and knocked on the owner's door, but there was nobody home so I wrote a note explaining what happened and left my phone number and email address, which I slipped through the mail slot so it wouldn't get blown away or taken.

I checked email before going to bed to find the following email:

Hi Lisa,

First let me say thank you for your honesty regarding hitting my wall. My first reaction was how could someone do this and not leave a note. Then I checked and found your note.

I will call you tomorrow to discuss.

Thanks,
(name deleted)

This morning I talked to our masonry expert/neighbor/house godfather to find out more about the project and what I should look for in a contractor/estimate. He's going to go by and bid on the repairs for me, possibly even to do the work himself this weekend. He's awesome -- his work is great and he knows everyone in town. So at least when the owner called, I could tell her I made some progress to rectify the situation.

When I got the owner's call around 10 am, I apologized immediately and told her I wanted to get her wall fixed properly as soon as possible. I think she was relieved. She mentioned she called the police (before she found my note) and they said the repairs wouldn't be that bad. She also said she had her chimney fixed recently and had some masonry work bid out before. She would call them and I would call for other bids. I got this email a few hours ago:

Hi Lisa,

Thanks again for caring and being responsible.

I did call (company deleted) and they can't get someone out to give a bid until Tuesday afternoon. So why don't you let me know when you have the bids from your people and either we can wait until Tuesday to get one more or perhaps select a contractor before then.

I know you will be out of town, so just give a call/email once you are back.

Thanks,
(name deleted)

I wrote her back the following:

Hi (name deleted),

That sounds great; thanks for calling (company deleted). As far as bids go, I have one bid coming by today, another scheduled for the 12th (which is also on Tuesday, the soonest they could come out -- (name/company deleted) will be there between 9:30 and 11:30 although you don't need to be there for it). And I have a call out to another place but have yet to hear back. It sounds like Tuesday would be the time to make the most informed decision about contractors since we'll have (at least) three bids to consider. I'll let you know what (the bid today) says when I talk to him -- if he's able to do the work this weekend, are you more inclined to go with him or would you prefer to wait until we get the other bids? If it's the former, I can arrange for him to do the work this weekend while I'm away.

Have a good afternoon and I'm so sorry for the hassle,
Lisa

So that's what's going on in Portland. I'm thankful nobody was hurt and the only damage to my car is the bumper coming off (which can be easily reattached). I'm disappointed that I caused so much trouble/damage but relieved that it's not worse. And now I can say I drove through a brick wall*, but I don't know if that's a good thing.




* The wall is only 2-3 feet high and I hit it smack in the corner, knocking the whole corner down -- say 3 feet in each direction. For such a slow speed, I'm surprised there was so much damage. I feel like I should be the Kool Aid man for Halloween, although I'm pretty embarrassed about the whole situation.