Nature vs. the '97 Volvo

Were the weather gods telling me I had too many cars? Yesterday afternoon as the cold front moved in and the wind whipped up, a huge branch fell on the newest of our old cars and left its mark.

Several weeks ago a neighbor noticed a large branch just hanging from this clump of branches, dangling dangerously over a power line. We called the county to ask them to remove it before it put the whole neighborhood in darkness. But no one ever came and we sort of forgot about the hanging branch.

It must have fallen yesterday afternoon during the high wind. But I didn’t notice it until this morning when I went out to get the paper. With great difficulty I lifted it off the car, to discover two really big dents and what appeared to be a small scratch in the windshield. It would have missed the car entirely had I parked a little straighter, but if I had been thinking of the branch I would never have parked the car there at all.


As I went out to do errands later today, I noticed that the small scratch in the windshield was now a series of cracks that radiated from the initial hit. The entire windshield will have to be replaced before the car will once again pass inspection.


For now it is on loan to a car-less friend in DC who is going to a wedding tomorrow. It will be fine for the next few days.

Then on Tuesday the glass man will come attempt to replace the windshield and we will talk about the two dents that should really be repaired.

When I complained to my husband about how much this Volvo costs to maintain, he reminded me that the car had not asked for a tree limb to fall on it. How true.

Then I remembered the story I had heard recently about a 600-pound cow that fell off a cliff onto the hood of a moving car in some far western state. The damage to my 1997 Volvo paled in comparison.