Thursday, October 09, 2008

Today In History: "Your car was hit by what?"

On this date in 1992, an insurance adjuster no doubt had his work cut out for him when the Knapps called to report that their 1980 Chevy Malibu had been hit while parked in their driveway.

By a rock.

From outer space.

10 comments:

Jay G said...

A 1980 Malibu? That can only be improved by the addition of space rocks...

(Side note: Verification word = uswcko. I'm offended...) ;)

Anonymous said...

Dude, that's the platonic ideal of "act of god"

Go pound sand.

Anonymous said...

Darn kids.

The Raving Prophet said...

If that was the incident I heard about in astronomy class some years back, then the insurance adjuster was likely unnecessary. Selling meteorites is EXTREMELY profitable; that one would have had no problem replacing a '80 Malibu with something that actually runs.

Jay G said...

Interesting side note. When I was a wee pup, my father insisted on buying a succession of seriously bad cars - he was infatuated with the GM diesels from the early 1980s, for example.

One of the possible candidates for young Jay G.'s first automobiles was a 1980 Chevy Malibu.

Wagon.

In that über-crappy sky-blue color GM was so fond of at the time.

Now, far be it from me to look a gift car under the hood, but... I wasn't exactly looking forward to beginning my driving career behind the wheel of a sky-blue Malibu wagon.

It was rendered moot, mind you, by the Malibu deciding on self-immolation for no apparent reason while sitting, unused, in the driveway. We could only assume the car was part Buddhist monk...

(Okay. Verification word: usxgaa. This is creepy)

Anonymous said...

Getting hit by a meteorite probably increased the car's value by 9,000(!) percent.

It's got provenance now as a meteor target.

Anonymous said...

Look at it this way: What's the chance of it getting hit TWICE?

phlegmfatale said...

so was the space rock worth more than the car was to begin with?

Bob said...

So the sky really IS falling!

That always reminds me of the humorous tombstone at Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion: Here Lies Good Old Fred/A Great Big Rock Fell On His Head.

The Raving Prophet said...

phlegmfatale:

Those space rocks are worth one whole heck of a lot. If one took out my 1 year old Jeep or my wife's 2.5 year old Acura (say, if either were sitting in the driveway), I wouldn't mind too terribly much. Not that I dislike the cars (love them both), but selling that size of a rock would likely bring more than enough to pay off the loans on BOTH and buy the replacement for cash, with some left over.