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TL;DR at the end. I'm bored at work so this is getting a short(ish) story.
EDIT: I expect no one to read this all! Thanks for stopping by, though!
This story starts as most tragedies do; a seemingly positive day.
I was headed to watch my favorite sports team push for the playoffs! We'd been riding high and showing promise. I'd taken the day to make sure I was ready to enjoy the game, all the clothes I needed, all the tailgate equipment, some good food ready to cook up. Getting things ready takes time and in this case, pushed me into the later parts of the afternoon and into the evening. This meant I get to make my trek to the north in the dark. I've never had a problem with this. I've grown accustom to driving at all times of the day and night. Hell, I've been known to sober up for a few hours at 3 am just so I can drive home an hour and sleep in my own bed. So in the moment, this meant nothing to me. So I packed up my impreza as I have dozens of times and head out.
Feeling in a good mood, I stopped at a local watering hole and grabbed a drink while I waited on 4 order of the area's best wings. We were planning to cook some food tonight and more tomorrow, so what better way to avoid eating all tomorrow's food than to have something equally great to work through as we go. It was busy there tonight; no real reason other than it was a wintery saturday in the land of binge drinking, so I sat and waited longer than expected. No matter; I'll just have a few cokes and make sure I have plenty of caffeine to fend off the nighttime grog.
Finally the food came. In good spirits, I tipped more than I normally would do (because tipping up to a round number is my way of giving back to the wait staff, and my OCD.) I hopped into the car, hoping all the wings made it to the end of the road with me (1 didn't ... Did I say they were the best in the area?).
I hadn't made too much of it previously, but it's worth mentioning that this was going to be a cold affair. Temperatures in the 10's (freedom units) during the day, which meant single digits in the evening. The suby was plenty warm and nothing could really bring me down. Everything was right in the world... until it wasn't.
Getting off the interstate, I took a route I don't typically take and made it into the county highway system; and deer country. The most educated can see where things were headed long before I could. Wouldn't have been able to do much to change what was coming, anyway. As car after car passed the other direction, I never really paid much mind to it. It was like every other time. Two headlights approaching, vision got a little more blown out, and with it, a little perspective that could have been helpful. In an instant, a deer was on me, crossing through the deadzone of vision the oncoming headlights had create. I had no time to react. Looking back on it, I remember laying on the horn like so many other deer encounters, but I'm assuming I was entirely too late for the deer to even hear it, much less react to it.
The deer smashed into the driver's side quarter panel, bouncing out of view on a trajectory up and back into the oncoming lane. I later found out that that car that wasn't helping my vision also had a run in with the same animal. That deer felt so poorly about it's life that it decided two perfectly good vehicles were coming with it into the afterlife.
Some will likely call it shock, and it probably was, but I continued down the road for maybe a quarter mile before I had the wherewithal to pull over and maybe take a look at what had just happened. So I pulled into a field's access road and put it in park. The car was still running. That was a good sign, I guess. The windshield was fine. Another good sign. And probably the best sign, the airbags hadn't deployed. I can't tell in hindsight if this was good, meaning the damage wasn't that bad, or bad, meaning my airbag system was faulty and anything more dangerous could have been deadly. This was just about where all the good signs ended.
Attempting to exit, the door refused to open. I pushed rather hard and eventually it gave. I wasn't able to open it completely, but enough to get out. Once out, it was pretty clear that my car wasn't in tip top shape. The quarter panel had been malformed enough that it was what was stopping my door from opening. Bad sign. Part of the deer was wedge in the void that used to be my headlight assembly and frame. Bad sign. The headlight assembly itself was just the wires that had driven it. Bad sign. The battery had been punctured and some of the cells exposed. Bad sign.
To this day, I'm not entirely sure how the car kept running but I'm thankful it did. Did I mention the single digit weather? Not exactly post-wreck party time weather, so I re-entered my vehicle and started the various calls that needed to happen. Before the call to the cops and the insurance agency, I shot a quick text to my sister and father that would be expecting me fairly soon. I was only about 15 minutes out from my destination at that point. I knew they would talk my ear off so I cut that off at the pass with a "I'm fine, but I just hit a deer. Dealing with the fallout." type text.
As I was about to dial them, a truck pulled up. It was the father of the other driver that had been headed the other direction. He proceeded to tell me the deer had went flying off my car almost directly into his daughter's car. As he put it, "Looking at your car, she definitely got the worse of it." He checked to make sure I was alright prior to that comment, but that line had stuck with me. I asked how she was doing and he said she's fine; car definitely isn't. After I told him I was good and he'd make his comment, he head back to her, rightfully so, and I got back to my tasks.
Phoned the police; simple "I hit a deer, send someone out. two cars involved, but I believe we're both alright." type stuff. Next it was the insurance. Now, say what you will about big box insurance companies, but I'm happy I wasn't with some mom-and-pop shop at this point. Big box meant 24/7 assistance. I got to someone almost right away, and we began the process. Boiler plate stuff but somewhere in the middle, my father called. I asked agent if I could switch over quickly and they said sure.
Now, he's a bit of a talker so I should have known better than to make it seem like it was a quick call to the agent, but as soon as I switched to his call, I almost immediately regretted it. He began asking kinds of questions which felt like the type of details that didn't matter; he might as well asked things like what I had for breakfast and what my favorite color was. I was certainly in a souring mood so I didn't take it out on him; and then I noticed the agent had hung up. Guess we'll deal with that later.
I'd started dealing with things like pulling out the roadside kit prior to these calls, but as I wasn't on with the agent and the cops, I picked back up while talking to him. Did I mention it was cold? I don't know if the shaking was the cold or the shock; likely a combination of the two, but doing things like setting out a reflector triangle and taking pictures for insurance wasn't particularly fun at this point so I ended up cutting my father short and told him I need to get back with the insurance and get things figured out. So after hanging up with him, I rung them back.
These conversations are boring as hell but the only thing that really mattered in it all was the tow truck. I was about 15 minutes away from my final destination and wasn't sure if I had towing coverage. They claimed I did and they would arrange the tow. Great to hear. We went over the various details that I don't remember at this point, but a truck was on the way, so that was nice.
Over the next few moments, many things happened. The cops stopped by once; I said maybe he should talk to the other vehicle if hers was in-fact worse off than mine. My father showed up and we started loading up the things that weren't able to be left in my car as it was towed. And I got a call from the towing company.
The towing company was asking for my payment information almost immediately. I informed them I wasn't supposed to need to pay and they were a bit confused, as was I. In the end, they decided they needed to call the insurance to verify, so I hung up with them so they could call the insurance, and I did the same. After talking to the insurance team for a third time now, they confirmed I should be good and wouldn't need to pay. As they communicated this, I got another call from the towing company. I let the insurance agent go and swapped over. It was a new towing agent, unsurprisingly also asking for payment information almost immediately. I told them the situation with the other agent and the other agent and they said they too would need to verify. A small dance began involving two towing agents, two insurance agents, my father bugging me about what I wanted for breakfast tomorrow (or something equally not important) and myself. At the end, I was exhausted, breathing heavily and without a tow truck.
It was at this point I began deciding if I really needed one. My car was still running. I didn't see any crucial fluids leaking. And even though my father had AAA and we could likely get a free tow still, that'd be another hour due to our location to even get the truck to us. I talked it over with my father, and as that was happening, the police officer pulled up. We did the typical stuff like taking a statement, he took my license and insurance information, and in the end, I brought him into the "what you think about me just driving home" conversation. We all decided it was worth a shot. Worst case, I'd need a tow.
So after saying goodbye to the officer, I climbed in my car and put it into gear. My father followed behind me to make sure nothing looked crazy from that vantage point and I kept it under 30, closer to 25. Initially, I felt a little wobble and was worried this wasn't going to work. Eventually, it seemed to calm down and we had the first decent news since this all started. We'd end up making it all the way to his place, albeit quite slowly and in easily twice the time it would have taken previously. I grabbed the now-cold wings and we head over to my sisters to salvage what remained of the night and prep for tomorrow.
Most of these details end up not important in the grand scheme of things. Suffice it to say, we didn't end up with the full spread we wanted, the sporting event was cold than it was supposed to be, and we ended up losing in tragic fashion on par with what had happened the previous evening. No "at least we won" feelings were to be had to justify the carnage.
But after all this, the tragedy began to begin altering its course. It was looking more and more like my car was to be totaled. It wasn't particularly new, but it was in good shape mechanically. There had always been some blemishes that stopped me from thinking it was worth much, though. I was on the fence about whether I'd prefer it totaled and take a small compensation towards something new, or just getting it fixed. I hadn't planned to get a new car at all so it's not like I'd saved up a down payment or been looking.
But now, it was time to look. I remember how I'd always been interested in Mavericks. I was looking at them before the OG preorders. I was always excited about the idea of it. I even ordered and took delivery on a '23, which I didn't end up purchasing. There was 1 thing that ended up stopping me every time. Really wanted an AWD version of the Hybrid. My Subaru was AWD and I'd come to rely on it and couldn't see not having it. But wait ... maybe it wasn't really necessary. Now's as good a time as any to re-evaluate my requirements. So I began looking at Mavericks again, and as many of you can see again what's coming before I could, I was excited to see what had happened while I wasn't looking.
Fast forward a few days and a slew of things had occurred. First, and most obvious, was I discovered they'd finally answered the call and gone AWD on the Maverick Hybrid. Second, was my car had indeed been totaled (RIP), but they'd given me over twice what I was expecting to get back. Sounds like a perfect deposit to me! And third, I'd decided when I really build out the XLT I wanted, I might as well just go Lariat.
So there I was, an insurance claim in my pocket and a dream of my Lariat. Obviously, I hadn't put in a preorder, so I started shopping around and as many of you probably know, without a preorder, pickings were slim. It was basically an accident to find what I wanted. But luckily for me, I was about to have another accident, but this time, a happy one.
A dealer about 30 minutes away had a Lariat on their website. I called and more or less asked "I this one you actually have and can sell, or are you doing that stupid thing that other dealers are doing and listing their special orders from people that haven't even arrived yet, much less talked to the ordering party and confirm if they want it or not?" It was real. So I was about to make a drive.
It wasn't the color I originally wanted. It was Space White. In my research, I'd concluded that as much as like other colors, the interior pigeon holed me a little and I was "grey or bust". But I was willing to give it a chance. It had a few extra packages that weren't really on my list, but certainly were helpful. Number entry pad, helpful. 4k Tow, handy if nothing else. Interior mats, can't hurt. So all quality of life things that I'm not going to nitpick on. So now it was on me to decide if the color was right. Did a little test drive, but it was night so I didn't get a clear view, but the ride... I could get used to it. I'd already bought it in my mind assuming I can get past that last hurdle.
As we returned to the dealer, I asked if there was any good lighting so I could take a little better look at the paint. He offered to let me pull into the service area with nice bright lights. So we did. As I got out, I decided there wasn't any reservations anymore. The Space White has this party trick where sometimes it's white. Sometimes it's grey. All the time it's not like other white vehicles.
So I pulled the trigger.
And now I present to you, your latest cult member.
Had it a little more than a week and already added a tonneau cover, some mud flaps, a tail damper, and some other QoL things. As the title says, the ruiner of bank accounts has entered the chat.
(TL;DR finally): A few weeks ago I was in my impreza, not even really thinking about becoming a new truck owner. But now I think I can say confidently, the deer made the most noble of sacrifices to lead me to where I am. And I couldn't be happier.
Cheers, cult members!
EDIT: I expect no one to read this all! Thanks for stopping by, though!
This story starts as most tragedies do; a seemingly positive day.
I was headed to watch my favorite sports team push for the playoffs! We'd been riding high and showing promise. I'd taken the day to make sure I was ready to enjoy the game, all the clothes I needed, all the tailgate equipment, some good food ready to cook up. Getting things ready takes time and in this case, pushed me into the later parts of the afternoon and into the evening. This meant I get to make my trek to the north in the dark. I've never had a problem with this. I've grown accustom to driving at all times of the day and night. Hell, I've been known to sober up for a few hours at 3 am just so I can drive home an hour and sleep in my own bed. So in the moment, this meant nothing to me. So I packed up my impreza as I have dozens of times and head out.
Feeling in a good mood, I stopped at a local watering hole and grabbed a drink while I waited on 4 order of the area's best wings. We were planning to cook some food tonight and more tomorrow, so what better way to avoid eating all tomorrow's food than to have something equally great to work through as we go. It was busy there tonight; no real reason other than it was a wintery saturday in the land of binge drinking, so I sat and waited longer than expected. No matter; I'll just have a few cokes and make sure I have plenty of caffeine to fend off the nighttime grog.
Finally the food came. In good spirits, I tipped more than I normally would do (because tipping up to a round number is my way of giving back to the wait staff, and my OCD.) I hopped into the car, hoping all the wings made it to the end of the road with me (1 didn't ... Did I say they were the best in the area?).
I hadn't made too much of it previously, but it's worth mentioning that this was going to be a cold affair. Temperatures in the 10's (freedom units) during the day, which meant single digits in the evening. The suby was plenty warm and nothing could really bring me down. Everything was right in the world... until it wasn't.
Getting off the interstate, I took a route I don't typically take and made it into the county highway system; and deer country. The most educated can see where things were headed long before I could. Wouldn't have been able to do much to change what was coming, anyway. As car after car passed the other direction, I never really paid much mind to it. It was like every other time. Two headlights approaching, vision got a little more blown out, and with it, a little perspective that could have been helpful. In an instant, a deer was on me, crossing through the deadzone of vision the oncoming headlights had create. I had no time to react. Looking back on it, I remember laying on the horn like so many other deer encounters, but I'm assuming I was entirely too late for the deer to even hear it, much less react to it.
The deer smashed into the driver's side quarter panel, bouncing out of view on a trajectory up and back into the oncoming lane. I later found out that that car that wasn't helping my vision also had a run in with the same animal. That deer felt so poorly about it's life that it decided two perfectly good vehicles were coming with it into the afterlife.
Some will likely call it shock, and it probably was, but I continued down the road for maybe a quarter mile before I had the wherewithal to pull over and maybe take a look at what had just happened. So I pulled into a field's access road and put it in park. The car was still running. That was a good sign, I guess. The windshield was fine. Another good sign. And probably the best sign, the airbags hadn't deployed. I can't tell in hindsight if this was good, meaning the damage wasn't that bad, or bad, meaning my airbag system was faulty and anything more dangerous could have been deadly. This was just about where all the good signs ended.
Attempting to exit, the door refused to open. I pushed rather hard and eventually it gave. I wasn't able to open it completely, but enough to get out. Once out, it was pretty clear that my car wasn't in tip top shape. The quarter panel had been malformed enough that it was what was stopping my door from opening. Bad sign. Part of the deer was wedge in the void that used to be my headlight assembly and frame. Bad sign. The headlight assembly itself was just the wires that had driven it. Bad sign. The battery had been punctured and some of the cells exposed. Bad sign.
To this day, I'm not entirely sure how the car kept running but I'm thankful it did. Did I mention the single digit weather? Not exactly post-wreck party time weather, so I re-entered my vehicle and started the various calls that needed to happen. Before the call to the cops and the insurance agency, I shot a quick text to my sister and father that would be expecting me fairly soon. I was only about 15 minutes out from my destination at that point. I knew they would talk my ear off so I cut that off at the pass with a "I'm fine, but I just hit a deer. Dealing with the fallout." type text.
As I was about to dial them, a truck pulled up. It was the father of the other driver that had been headed the other direction. He proceeded to tell me the deer had went flying off my car almost directly into his daughter's car. As he put it, "Looking at your car, she definitely got the worse of it." He checked to make sure I was alright prior to that comment, but that line had stuck with me. I asked how she was doing and he said she's fine; car definitely isn't. After I told him I was good and he'd make his comment, he head back to her, rightfully so, and I got back to my tasks.
Phoned the police; simple "I hit a deer, send someone out. two cars involved, but I believe we're both alright." type stuff. Next it was the insurance. Now, say what you will about big box insurance companies, but I'm happy I wasn't with some mom-and-pop shop at this point. Big box meant 24/7 assistance. I got to someone almost right away, and we began the process. Boiler plate stuff but somewhere in the middle, my father called. I asked agent if I could switch over quickly and they said sure.
Now, he's a bit of a talker so I should have known better than to make it seem like it was a quick call to the agent, but as soon as I switched to his call, I almost immediately regretted it. He began asking kinds of questions which felt like the type of details that didn't matter; he might as well asked things like what I had for breakfast and what my favorite color was. I was certainly in a souring mood so I didn't take it out on him; and then I noticed the agent had hung up. Guess we'll deal with that later.
I'd started dealing with things like pulling out the roadside kit prior to these calls, but as I wasn't on with the agent and the cops, I picked back up while talking to him. Did I mention it was cold? I don't know if the shaking was the cold or the shock; likely a combination of the two, but doing things like setting out a reflector triangle and taking pictures for insurance wasn't particularly fun at this point so I ended up cutting my father short and told him I need to get back with the insurance and get things figured out. So after hanging up with him, I rung them back.
These conversations are boring as hell but the only thing that really mattered in it all was the tow truck. I was about 15 minutes away from my final destination and wasn't sure if I had towing coverage. They claimed I did and they would arrange the tow. Great to hear. We went over the various details that I don't remember at this point, but a truck was on the way, so that was nice.
Over the next few moments, many things happened. The cops stopped by once; I said maybe he should talk to the other vehicle if hers was in-fact worse off than mine. My father showed up and we started loading up the things that weren't able to be left in my car as it was towed. And I got a call from the towing company.
The towing company was asking for my payment information almost immediately. I informed them I wasn't supposed to need to pay and they were a bit confused, as was I. In the end, they decided they needed to call the insurance to verify, so I hung up with them so they could call the insurance, and I did the same. After talking to the insurance team for a third time now, they confirmed I should be good and wouldn't need to pay. As they communicated this, I got another call from the towing company. I let the insurance agent go and swapped over. It was a new towing agent, unsurprisingly also asking for payment information almost immediately. I told them the situation with the other agent and the other agent and they said they too would need to verify. A small dance began involving two towing agents, two insurance agents, my father bugging me about what I wanted for breakfast tomorrow (or something equally not important) and myself. At the end, I was exhausted, breathing heavily and without a tow truck.
It was at this point I began deciding if I really needed one. My car was still running. I didn't see any crucial fluids leaking. And even though my father had AAA and we could likely get a free tow still, that'd be another hour due to our location to even get the truck to us. I talked it over with my father, and as that was happening, the police officer pulled up. We did the typical stuff like taking a statement, he took my license and insurance information, and in the end, I brought him into the "what you think about me just driving home" conversation. We all decided it was worth a shot. Worst case, I'd need a tow.
So after saying goodbye to the officer, I climbed in my car and put it into gear. My father followed behind me to make sure nothing looked crazy from that vantage point and I kept it under 30, closer to 25. Initially, I felt a little wobble and was worried this wasn't going to work. Eventually, it seemed to calm down and we had the first decent news since this all started. We'd end up making it all the way to his place, albeit quite slowly and in easily twice the time it would have taken previously. I grabbed the now-cold wings and we head over to my sisters to salvage what remained of the night and prep for tomorrow.
Most of these details end up not important in the grand scheme of things. Suffice it to say, we didn't end up with the full spread we wanted, the sporting event was cold than it was supposed to be, and we ended up losing in tragic fashion on par with what had happened the previous evening. No "at least we won" feelings were to be had to justify the carnage.
But after all this, the tragedy began to begin altering its course. It was looking more and more like my car was to be totaled. It wasn't particularly new, but it was in good shape mechanically. There had always been some blemishes that stopped me from thinking it was worth much, though. I was on the fence about whether I'd prefer it totaled and take a small compensation towards something new, or just getting it fixed. I hadn't planned to get a new car at all so it's not like I'd saved up a down payment or been looking.
But now, it was time to look. I remember how I'd always been interested in Mavericks. I was looking at them before the OG preorders. I was always excited about the idea of it. I even ordered and took delivery on a '23, which I didn't end up purchasing. There was 1 thing that ended up stopping me every time. Really wanted an AWD version of the Hybrid. My Subaru was AWD and I'd come to rely on it and couldn't see not having it. But wait ... maybe it wasn't really necessary. Now's as good a time as any to re-evaluate my requirements. So I began looking at Mavericks again, and as many of you can see again what's coming before I could, I was excited to see what had happened while I wasn't looking.
Fast forward a few days and a slew of things had occurred. First, and most obvious, was I discovered they'd finally answered the call and gone AWD on the Maverick Hybrid. Second, was my car had indeed been totaled (RIP), but they'd given me over twice what I was expecting to get back. Sounds like a perfect deposit to me! And third, I'd decided when I really build out the XLT I wanted, I might as well just go Lariat.
So there I was, an insurance claim in my pocket and a dream of my Lariat. Obviously, I hadn't put in a preorder, so I started shopping around and as many of you probably know, without a preorder, pickings were slim. It was basically an accident to find what I wanted. But luckily for me, I was about to have another accident, but this time, a happy one.
A dealer about 30 minutes away had a Lariat on their website. I called and more or less asked "I this one you actually have and can sell, or are you doing that stupid thing that other dealers are doing and listing their special orders from people that haven't even arrived yet, much less talked to the ordering party and confirm if they want it or not?" It was real. So I was about to make a drive.
It wasn't the color I originally wanted. It was Space White. In my research, I'd concluded that as much as like other colors, the interior pigeon holed me a little and I was "grey or bust". But I was willing to give it a chance. It had a few extra packages that weren't really on my list, but certainly were helpful. Number entry pad, helpful. 4k Tow, handy if nothing else. Interior mats, can't hurt. So all quality of life things that I'm not going to nitpick on. So now it was on me to decide if the color was right. Did a little test drive, but it was night so I didn't get a clear view, but the ride... I could get used to it. I'd already bought it in my mind assuming I can get past that last hurdle.
As we returned to the dealer, I asked if there was any good lighting so I could take a little better look at the paint. He offered to let me pull into the service area with nice bright lights. So we did. As I got out, I decided there wasn't any reservations anymore. The Space White has this party trick where sometimes it's white. Sometimes it's grey. All the time it's not like other white vehicles.
So I pulled the trigger.
And now I present to you, your latest cult member.
Had it a little more than a week and already added a tonneau cover, some mud flaps, a tail damper, and some other QoL things. As the title says, the ruiner of bank accounts has entered the chat.
(TL;DR finally): A few weeks ago I was in my impreza, not even really thinking about becoming a new truck owner. But now I think I can say confidently, the deer made the most noble of sacrifices to lead me to where I am. And I couldn't be happier.
Cheers, cult members!
Sponsored
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Congrats.
