And now it’s time for another edition of “This Stuff Only Can Happen to Me!”

This is the kind of true story that always made for great stuff when I worked on the radio. It is so ridiculous, but it is true!

I was driving into work last night and I was about 2 miles from my exit minding my own business when it happened. A “Kamikaze Goose” flew directly into my front end. To say that I was freaked out would be an understatement! It happened so fast! There was an explosion of feathers and a God awful sound when it hit my car. According to Google, these birds tend to fly about 40 mph. I am far from a math wizard, but if I had my cruise control set to 75 mph, that had to be one heck of an impact!

There were cars on both sides of me while I was driving, so I couldn’t swerve or anything. After the impact, I got to the right lane and got ready to exit the expressway. The car seemed to be driving ok, but I wanted to pull over and check. This may sound morbid, but I really didn’t know if the goose was still on the front of the car. Once off the expressway, I pulled into a parking lot and took a look at the car.

I was surprised that there seemed to be minimal damage. I saw a decent chunk out of the bumper, the grill looked like it had come apart, and there were a few feathers stuck to the front of the car. That’s when I noticed (and smelled) the antifreeze. It was gushing from the bottom of the car. The radiator is in the front of the car, so it became apparent that there was more damage than I could see.

I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to drive the car, so I called into work. I was 70 miles from home. I didn’t realize that we didn’t have towing on our insurance, so I had to call a wrecker and had to pay out of pocket. My father-in-law’s house is close, so I had it towed there and he drove me home.

When I got home, I called our insurance company and began the claim. I was happy to find out that since it was an animal that caused the damage, it was covered under comprehensive. Our comprehensive carries no deductible, so there will be no further out of pocket costs to us. The $300 towing bill should be all that we have to pay.

I was told that since the car can’t be driven that they were sending me a link to an app to download. Once I got to my in-law’s today, I opened the app and the adjuster pops up on the screen and it is like Facetime. He said, “It looks like you hit an animal.” I asked if that could be the way it is worded and he laughed and asked why. “Believe it or not, a goose flew into my car!” He got a chuckle out of that.

He asked if the air bags deployed. I never even thought about that. I’m sure that if that happened, they probably would have totaled the car. Anyway, using my phone, I showed him the damage. He took pictures as I walked around the vehicle and then sent the estimate. All I had to do was tell him where I wanted the vehicle taken for repairs. The whole thing took like 10 minutes tops.

Later, I got a call from the tow truck who was taking the vehicle to the repair shop. The driver says, “Oh that’s a Chevy dealer, they won’t take your Hyundai there. Do you want me to take it to the Hyundai dealer?” I figured this guy knew what he was talking about, so I said he could. I sent off an email to the insurance company to say that it was going to a different place and they said ok.

I picked up the phone to call the Hyundai place to tell them to expect the vehicle. They guy tells me that they don’t have a body shop there and that all of that kind of work happens at the Chevy dealer. So I call the tow truck driver back and tell him they didn’t have a body shop at the Hyundai dealer (which he is pulling into as I call). He assures me it is no problem to turn around and take it back to the Chevy place.

I had to work tonight, so I went and napped after dealing with all of that stuff. When I woke up, there was a message from the body shop saying that the car was there, but the insurance company had cancelled it going there. He did some legwork and I guess he was waiting for new paperwork to arrive so he could start the work.

Long story short – I will be without a car for probably 2 or 3 weeks. I hope that the damage isn’t anything that will cause it to be there longer than that.

Kamikaze Geese! Who knew?!