A Drive By Nutting

 So I was enjoying a lovely conversation with D2 today, as she turned onto her leafy Miami Shores street, and I heard a thud followed by her screaming "OMG -- that the hell was that?" As an anxious Dad, luckily that interjection was NOT followed by silence, or worse, by more screams, as that would have aged me instantly MORE than the normal aging that comes from being an anxious father and grandfather.

I immediately thought maybe a dog had darted out in front of her, which in my dog crazed family would have been almost as bad as if it had been a person -- actually worse than had it been an OLD person as none of us really like old people any more. Ha.

Anyway, she said right away that a coconut had fallen from the sky and cracked her windshield. She pulled over, and found the culprit -- in fact NOT a coconut but a small and heavy tree nut of some kind -- later identified as a mahogany seed pod. The damned things ARE dense and heavy, and it probably fell from about 50 feet.

D2 was fine, and sent a picture of the damaged windshield. I joked that probably Betsy and Lemon, hers and D1's dogs, had likely peed on that very tree hundreds of times, and it was time for the tree to get revenge.

The good news is that she was fine. Also, in one of the few VERY favorable Florida auto insurance laws, anyone having comprehensive coverage (all of us) enjoys a law that says there is ZERO deductible for windshield damage claims. I recall this from my 2 incidents of damage -- both actually more serious than a pretty tree shedding a pod. The theory is that driving around with a damaged windshield is a hazard, unlike, say, a dented fender, and they don't want anyone avoiding repairs because of the cost of a deductible.

So in fact Safelight will be out next week to replace the windshield -- billing the insurance company directly. As D2 noted, easy peasy...

I told her about MY 2 windshield incidents. The first was driving at highway speed in North Miami, and I saw a heavy steel spike fly off a flatbed truck in front of me, and come directly towards the windshield of my car -- smashing through. It was a railroad spike-looking thing -- probably weighed 2 pounds. Luckily it crashed into the passenger seat, and more luckily, I had no passenger. Safelight came out a few days later and replaced my windshield -- I think I may have left the offending spike in the garage of our last house after we moved.

The second time was comically timed. After we bought Villa Wifey, the next day we listed our Falls house for sale. That house, in unincorporated Kendall, was the scene of two car thefts -- my Lexus LS 400 stolen from the front, and, 3 months later, when I replaced the never found first one -- stolen again!

My anger was assuaged by the fact that the second time, the residual value of the lease was $3000 higher than the payoff, so Prudential paid me $3K after paying off Toyota Credit. Hmmm, I thought -- at that rate...

Anyway, I stopped leasing Lexuses, as they were, per the detective, easy to steal. By the time we were ready to move to Pinecrest, in 2000, I had a BMW. The VERY night we listed the house for sale, some POS folks came out, stole the 4 wheels, and attempted to pry off the windshield so they could get to, I guess, the BOSE sound system or maybe the airbags. They must have gotten scared off, as I found the car up on blocks, but the windshield only partly removed. Safelight came out -- free new windshield. Insurance paid for the 4 wheels -- but there WAS a deductible.

More importantly, I took it as a sign that it was indeed the time to flee Kendall for the safer Pinecrest. Man -- that was 1/4 century ago.

I don't see any sign in D2's experience today -- kind of hard to avoid trees in Miami -- especially outside of Brickell and Downtown. But maybe Betsy will look up when she pees under a tree next time.

And -- I AM of course relieved that only some glass was broken. Vengeful trees...