Can Anyone Else Feel A Breeze?

Oklahoma weather is insane. I thought the weather in New Orleans was unpredictable. Jeez! Thursday evening the wind began to pick up. It seemed to come out of nowhere.


My baby girl had a Girl Scout egg hunt. The boy was able to participate since he’s been dubbed an official Girl Scout Brother and has been unofficially adopted by the girls…except my daughter; she wishes they’d all take him home so she can be a “lonely” child (I think she means “only”).

During the egg hunt, the wind blew up the dust and made the leaves on the ground whip up into spirals. The air was heavy with the smell of smoke from the grass fires that raged in the distance and a milky haze filled the sky causing the mountains to resemble ghosts. It resembled early morning fog. The evening sun struggled to shine through. None of this stopped the children from their hunting game. They ran carelessly around the fields finding their brightly colored eggs filled with sweets and trinkets, oblivious to any danger.

Later that night, the winds blew violently with gusts up to 50 miles per hour. Many times during the night, I awoke to the howling of the winds whipping through the trees as branches were snapped and thrown against the house. My daughter ended up coming to the door to ask to sleep in my bed. The commotion outside had woken her up as well and probably scared the shit out of her.

The next day as I was running errands, I noticed trees ripped from the ground by the roots and fences toppled over. Branches were everywhere. Many homes were missing shingles but the wind was relentless. It was still bludgeoning the landscape with fury.

After school, I dropped my son off at a friend’s home for a sleepover (is that what you call what boys do??). My daughter and I headed to Wal-Mart in search of a futon to put into Buddy’s old room. The wind was still blowing around something terrible and when my daughter went to get out of the truck the wind snatched that door and nearly flung her onto the pavement. Luckily, there was no vehicle parked next to us or our door would have crashed into it causing some awful damage.

As we exited the truck, my daughter called over to me that she couldn’t close the door. When I came around the truck to the passenger side, I had to jerk the door nearly as hard as I could to get it to become unstuck. I assumed the door had been whipped open further than it was supposed to and had just needed to be yanked back into place. We went ahead into Wal-Mart and I didn’t think another thing about it.

When we returned to the truck, girl child went to get back in and called me over because she couldn’t open it now. I walked over and gave the door a quick tug and the awful sound of metal filled my ears. I looked over in the direction of the hinges and saw that the door was slightly over the corner of the fender. There was chipped paint and I could see where some of the metal was bent. I could tell that the door was crooked too. On the drive home, I could hear the wind coming in through the door. It sounded like I was driving with the windows cracked.

After we returned home, I called the insurance company and they set me up with a local body shop to get an estimate. Today, I dropped by the shop to have them take a look at it. They are going to need to replace the entire fender which is going to run roughly $1400 and once they remove the door it is possible that the hinges will need to be replaced as well. Thank goodness for insurance! I will only need to pay my deductible.

The guy at the body shop was able to make a minor adjustment to try to prevent any water from coming into the truck. Although the great state of Oklahoma hasn’t seen a good rain in I don’t even know how long, I was sure the door was leaking.  Why?  Because being the genius I am I decided it would a good idea to go through the carwash to clean my dusty ass truck.

Each time the water jets came across the door, water trickled down the window. Sometimes my genius shines. I’m telling you!

Now I wait. Apparently from what the girl doing my paperwork told me, I’m not the only person that was lucky enough to get some vehicle damage from the crazy wind. It looks like it will be the beginning of May before they can get me in.

One good thing is we had an existing dent on the fender that I was planning on getting an estimate for anyway. Since the wind messed up the door on the same side, I was told that the fender needs to be replaced anyway.

So although it sucks that I can’t use the door right now, at least, I can kill two birds with one stone. Also, for the time being, I don’t have to listen to my children bicker over who is going to sit in the front seat. Thank goodness for small favors.