Monday Morning Stories With Mookie - Episode 83

The Time Mookie Hit A Raccoon With His New Car

A few years back my wife and I got a brand new Ford Fusion for me to drive.  While it was a bit expensive, I had just gotten a promotion at work so it looked like we could afford it.  This thing was LOADED.  It was black, with all-wheel-drive, black cloth bucket seats, air, sunroof, Sirius Satellite Radio, and power everything. We even got the windows tinted so it looked even more bad ass.  A nice plus of the dark windows was that the kids could ride in the back with less glare from the sun.  If you are thinking to yourself "You had kids and child safety seats in the back?  That's not cool."...Yeah well screw you.  They were cool...the kids and the seats.

A few months after we got the car, winter arrived.  I have to say that the all-wheel-drive was worth its weight in gold on those snowy/icy days as I hummed down the highways watching other cars swerve off into the ditches.  Sometimes I could feel the back-end of the car wanting to "let go" as I drove along, but then felt the rear wheels catch up with the rest of the car and bring it back.  It was pretty sweet.

Early one particular evening in the dead of February, the kids and I were coming home from work/daycare.  It was getting near twilight where the sun was still giving off enough light, but it was almost time for headlights.  It had snowed a lot recently, so the shoulders and ditches along the highway were full of drifts - however the roads were completely clear.  I must also mention it was M-F-N COLD.  Like zero degrees or less.  We rounded a curve and came up over a little hill, and then out of the corner of my eye I saw this big fat gray and black critter make a run for it RIGHT in front of my car.  I had no time to react, and even if I did - previous personal events taught me otherwise of swerving an animal smaller than the car.

WHUMPH!

I heard it hit the front, and then the noise it made as the critter passed under the car.  I hit him good.

Knowing this was a "new" car, I was pissed.  I turned around and went back to see what it was and if it was dead.  I figured that it was a raccoon, but wasn't totally sure.  I drove up and down the road where I hit it......It was nowhere to be found. So either I didn't kill it, or the back tires threw it.  Either way, I was pissed about hitting it, but didn't think much about it.  The kids and I headed home and I thought that was the end of it.

A few weeks later I was at the mall on my lunch break, and when I was walking back to my car I noticed something wrong with the front air dam and ground effects on the front bumper.  I looked and they were badly cracked and broken.  The first thing I thought of was vandals or something, but why would they damage the grill of a car?  Then it hit me...it was THAT RACCOON.

Any other time of year, that greasy little dirtbag probably would have bounced like a basketball off the front of the car.  In the dead of winter...nooo...noo.  That plastic shattered like glass in the cold under the impact of that tubby masked varmit.  God I was pissed.

I called my insurance company to have them come out and survey the damage.  In the coming days I went and got a few estimates.  All of them were approximately the same...$1,200.00  That little shit animal broke the front grill, which of course was all one piece, and connection rods behind the grill that protect the radiator.  Thankfully insurance picked up the hurt of it, but we were still on the hook for deductible.  God I was pissed at that animal.

In the end, I'm glad I didn't swerve and total the whole damn car but I still hate that animal.
I don't even have the car anymore and I hate him.