Mr. Karen’s truck will not be coming home. Last Wednesday, the insurance adjuster declared it totaled. I was really hoping that wouldn’t happen, but it did. Evidently the damage wasn’t just cosmetic–the rear axle and the frame were both bent, and adding that to the repairs and replacements needed for the bed and the tailgate and the back door pushed the total too high to save it. Well, that just sucks. Mr. Karen had put a lot of time and effort into customizing it; it had served him well for seven years and we’d hoped to get another seven out of it. Nope, said the insurance company. Nope, said the guy at the body shop.

So Thursday night I took time out from packing for quilt retreat (which I did go to and return from and will write about soon) to go with Mr. Karen to get a few things off the truck before the insurance company took it away. It would have been nicer for him to be able to do it on the weekend during the day, but no, the insurance company couldn’t wait–they needed almost a week to come evaluate it but couldn’t give us a few days to arrange to get the stuff off. So there we were, in the dark, in the cold, in the wind, removing the cap and the rack mounts and such. I kept thinking someone would come ask us what we were doing, but no. I guess walking around in a parking lot with a flashlight and tools doesn’t look as suspicious as I thought.

It was sobering to see the floor of the bed once we stripped it–it wasn’t just bent but split open. If the impact had been a few feet forward, that force would have been applied to me and I might have been broken instead. Though at least the health insurance company probably wouldn’t have totaled me.

Now we’ve got to find a replacement truck. We’re looking at getting something used, since we were not planning on taking on a car payment just now. I’d hoped to subtitle this entry “Hello, Yellow Ranger”, as we thought we might have found the replacement–it had all of the needs and all but one of the wants on Mr.’s list, but when he went to look at it and drive it, it turned out to be mechanically suspect. Sad.