Dogs of C-Kennel by Mick & Mason Mastroianni for September 13, 2023

From Not Always Right:

My dad had a [Brand] SUV for a good chunk of my childhood to adulthood. It was fifteen years old when I was eighteen and looked practically new. He always liked to joke that he bought it specifically to protect my mom and me and that this was cheaper than a tank — to which we would always give the obligatory dad-joke groan.

In the summer of 2019, my dad went to Texas to visit his parents. We got a call from him two weeks before he was supposed to come home, telling us he needed to get a rental car.

Mom: “What happened?”

Dad: “The car is totaled.”

Now, as a reminder, this car was fifteen years old. I’d assumed he’d run into a light pole a bit too hard, was told it wasn’t worth it to repair the car with how much the car was worth, and was advised to get a new car.

No problem. Dad was still talking to the police and could not give many details at the moment, so Mom contacted the rental car company — her English is better than his, but he is used to the insurance company — and we went about our day.

The next day, I walked into the kitchen to see my mom looking a bit shocked.

Mom: “So, you remember how Dad totaled his car yesterday?”

Me: “Yeah. Did he say what happened? He was busy yesterday when he called.”

Mom: “Yeah.”

As it turns out, Dad was turning left onto a fairly busy road. The light was green for him, and a car came speeding through a red light and sideswiped him on his passenger side while he was turning. They sideswiped him so hard, in fact, that his car actually fell onto its side!

The shocking thing is that Dad wasn’t hurt at all — not even a scratch. He had to climb out through the trunk because the doors on the driver’s side were obviously blocked, and the passenger side doors were being held shut via gravity, but otherwise, he escaped completely unharmed.

Continued

Severe CARrosion!

Meanwhile, the car that hit him was actually significantly more damaged from the encounter to the point where — this could be the part where my dad was exaggerating, so take this with a grain of salt — it actually caught on fire slightly.

We are very grateful for three things:

1) My grandmother was not riding in the car with my father at the time, as she would’ve been on the passenger side of the car.

2) That fifteen-year-old SUV was strong enough to withstand falling on its side so my dad was able to get out of the car with minimal help and no injury.

3) Usually, my dad doesn’t wear his seatbelt except when he plans to go on the freeway. (Yes, my mom and I have told him multiple times how bad of an idea that is and provided him with as many resources as we can to try to convince him to wear the darn thing. He just kind of brushes us off, and no amount of arguing will change his mind.) He’d just come off the highway when his car was sideswiped

My Tundra did that. The body is fine, but the frame rusted through.

Winter is coming.

Looks like years of salt and rust……..

Life in the Rust Belt.

Darwinism – CARwinism. Cute! I still think I will call that kind of automobile – Urban Camouflage. Because rust blends in well with the rest of the buildings.

Any upper Midwest winter does that to vehicles. Cars would change color during the wintertime due to all the salt laid down on the roads. My 2012 Genesis would have a most beautiful shade of pink until I ran it through a car was, then it was burgundy.

or age and salt…..

Time to ’er up on blocks.

I’ve had a couple of “OLD” retired plow trucks that ended up like that …… ;0

Yep. My first car was a ’55 Chevy that had spent its first 10 years in Detroit. Lost my wallet out through the floorboard one time.