Friday, March 18, 2011

Yesterday, I parked my van in the parking lot and went to work as usual.  When I returned at the end of the day, I found this:


I was more confused than anything - how could anyone park that close? Neither of us would be able to open our driver's side doors at all.  The driver of the other vehicle had to get out on the passenger side.  But it makes no sense - how could you get the two vehicles this close without scraping up each of them?  There were no scrape marks at all.

A few minutes later, the owner of the other vehicle arrived.  He was just as baffled. He claimed that he parked properly, left by the driver's side door, and went to work.

As it turns out, that morning there was a small layer of ice in the parking lot.  Through the day, the temperature rose, the ice melted and the car slid sideways slightly downhill into my van.  We called a tow truck to pull my van sideways to the right.  After that, I could back straight up.  There was no damage at all.


If there was damage, however, it would have been a confusing call to the insurance company.  "You see, both cars were turned off and in park at the time of the collision.  Neither driver was present.  The colliding car moved sideways toward the driver's side door."  It would have been a fun conversation.