The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

I'm not sure there's any good way to preface this week. So here goes.

Nate's on his way to school one fateful Monday night, when this happens. He hadn't driven 3 blocks when a guy pulls out and broadsides our 4 Runner. The door won't open, the car isn't drivable, and that was the easiest part of the entire week. Turns out that Hartford Insurance is the worst company in the history of the world. 

The accident was on Monday and was very clearly the other guy's fault. There are witnesses, the guy himself admits fault, and everybody agrees to that fact fairly quickly. Nate starts filing a claim before even leaving the scene of the accident. The guy files a report with his insurance company on Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, we are arguing with his insurance company for a tow truck and rental car. This argument lasts for several days and each time their Rep is telling us, "we still haven't determined liability." In the end, we found out the Rep was just being difficult, lying directly to our faces, and was prolonging the claim for no good reason. After providing a detailed report to her supervisor, manager, and call center director in conjunction with Nate explaining just how much fun it would be to take this to court, poof!!!! All of the sudden they can find the other driver's report, determine that they are liable, pick up our rental car, and our car is towed away within the hour. Magic isn't it?

So that all gets sorted out by Saturday, meanwhile Nate has been at school 12 hours a day for the past 5 days preparing for a competition that his Alternative Dispute Resolution society was hosting. The car is finally sorted Saturday, and guess what happens Sunday morning while everyone is getting ready for church?

Flood

A buzzing sound starts going off around 9 a.m. while we are watching our Sunday morning political pundit shows, having a good laugh of course. Bryn, who has been sick with 5th's disease, a virus which leaves her entire body covered with little red bumps, is playing on the floor. Jen is in the shower. Nate's on the couch. Nate looks up at our ceiling and starts to see one drip mark appear after another. Water begins furiously running down the walls, out the electrical sockets, and flooding the kitchen. After scooping Bryn up, putting her in the bathroom saying "watch Bryn, the house is flooding," he grabs an armful of towels and shuts off the circuit breaker. Keep in mind, this is only a few weeks after we finished our kitchen remodel. When it rains it pours! Right?

Turns out, our neighbor's washing machine burst a seal 3 floors up. It flood our apartment, the old lady above us, and their own apartment. For a minute there we thought the old lady above us had a heart attack or something and was collapsed in her apartment. Turns out, she was just staying with family.

After 6 or 7 hours of waiting, we finally get our property manager to show up. He immediately calls a disaster clean-up company who begins clean-up Sunday night at 4 p.m. Just as they knock on the door Bryn wakes up from her nap and we discover she decided to use her Desitin diaper rash cream as toothpaste. It's smeared all over her dresser, clothes, and face. So Jen's on the phone with poison control, two guys are tearing our baseboards off and ripping up carpet, and we find out we've got to book a hotel for the foreseeable future. 

In the end, we stayed at the Holiday Inn for 6 days. P.s. Don't try and share a one room hotel room with a 2 year old. It's not a lot of fun!!! But 6 days later we get back into our house and they begin patching the walls, ceiling, baseboards, and painting. It's been several weeks now and they still have to relay our carpet and put new pad down underneath. But at least we've finally escaped our Horrible, Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Week!!!!!