It's just the inconvenience of it all

I think it was about 4:55 am when I woke to the sound of metal crunching, then an engine revving, more crunching, more revving, one last crunch before the sputtering off down the street. "What the heck was that?" I asked my sleeping husband, who of course hadn't heard a thing. He looked out the window and came back to bed, muttering, "I don't see anything."

Twenty minutes later the Tacoma police rang our doorbell to let us know our van had been hit, along with the neighbor's car. To give my husband credit, you really couldn't see anything unusual from our window in the foggy darkness. A woman delivering newspapers had seen the whole thing and gotten the license plate of the industrial van that did it. Apparently he tried to squeeze between her car, which was stopped in the middle of the street, and our parked cars. He hit the neighbor's car, then hit ours. His mirror got hung up in our back side window so he threw it in reverse to get out, hitting the neighbor's car again before speeding off down the street.

The police had already contacted the registered owner of the van, who said he had sold it last month. They gave us a copy of their policy on hit-and-runs, which says they don't investigate unless there are injuries, damages over $5K, or an eyewitness account including license plate # and driver description. Since she hadn't seen the driver, chances are it won't be investigated further. But we are welcome to try to file a civil suit.

So, no justice. At least our insurance took care of everything right away. The van's been towed off to the body shop and they gave us a rental for up to a month. So aside from losing our morning to get everything squared away, life as normal has now continued. Of course, normal around here is always a little strange. But this is where we choose to live and really - these things can happen anywhere. As usual, it could have been so much worse.