Rather than writing another whiny post about our lack of sleep and how miserable we are because of it, I have something completely different to whine about today.

This is what the movers did to my car.

(Buries face in hands and sobs)

The story that the movers told us is that they were driving the car up the ramp onto the truck, and apparently the ramp wasn’t hooked up correctly, because it collapsed when the car was halfway up. So, the front end of my car + the back end of the moving truck x high velocity = smoosh.

Now, this really shouldn’t be a big deal, right? The moving company is clearly liable, and they’re insured, so they’ll pay for the repairs, yes? Cue the corporate foot-dragging!

First, the truck driver told Dave that it was just “cosmetic damage,” but when I tried to start the car, it sounded really scary, so I turned it off and I refused to drive it. I called the claims department at the moving company and told them that they were going to have to pay to have it towed. They said no, but they’d send out an adjustor to decide for them whether or not the car is driveable. The adjustor was here for about 5 minutes – he looked at the car and said, “well, I wouldn’t drive it, so I certainly wouldn’t expect you to do so.” Fine. He also said that since the repairs would probably take a while, the movers should pay for me to have a rental car in the meantime. Which is a good point, because with Dave going into the office every day, and me with no driveable car, Cate and I have been going stir-crazy with no means of transportation during the day. I don’t think it bothers her as much as me, but I’ve been feeling more than a little trapped. So thank you, Mr. Adjustor Man.

I called the claims people for the next several days, while they continued to say that they hadn’t gotten the adjustor’s report yet. (He told me he’d have it to them within 24 hours.) Yesterday, the claims lady acted all happy and said, “well, I don’t want to make any promises, but I think you’re going to see something this week.” Um, sorry, I’m going to see… something? What does that even mean? She said that they were going to send me a check for the cost of the repairs. Wait a second, we haven’t even gotten the car to a shop to get an estimate, and they’re going to send me a check? How do they know how much the repairs are going to cost?

I mentioned to the claims lady that I need a rental car and that they should be the ones to pay for it, and she said, “well certainly, if you need a car, go ahead and rent a car, and when you fill out your claim form, we’ll consider reimbursing you for it.” You’ll consider reimbursing me? We can’t afford any extra expenses right now, so if the tab isn’t being picked up by the movers, we really can’t get a rental. The fact that I can’t get a straight answer out of these people has me at the end of my rope.

So I caved in and called Progressive, our car insurance people. I probably should’ve done it the first day, but I didn’t think we needed them since it was the moving company’s fault. At this point, I figure that if nothing else, they can talk to the movers’ insurance people and act as advocates on our behalf to figure out what the heck is going on. They were very nice and seem like they’re on our side, but seriously? I have no idea what our recourse is after this. I just want to cry when I see that picture of my car. Poor little Subaru.