"nick maher body shop, we fix RVs"

So my RV got hit by a car last weekend and I’m so glad I decided to wait to tell this story until now because of how the guy who hit it reacted after the fact. 

I did a renegade art show at a friends house last weekend and parked behind her house sort of in between the parking lot for her building and the houses next door. It was certainly a tight-ish squeeze for cars to get in and out of her lot but people had been doing it all day.  So the show is over and everyone leaves so I just keep the RV where it has been all day and go to sleep. So stoked to sleep in after waking up early the previous day and staying up late that night, I was abruptly awoken to two super loud pops followed by my RV moving a bit so I knew someone had hit me.  I had been awake for like 10 seconds when I went outside to see what happened so needless to say, I was a bit out of it.  The neighbor driving a tiny car that, mind you, had gotten by my RV the night before in the dark with no trouble had hit my awning pole with his tire which, as it turns out, is pretty sharp. Sharp enough to slash the shit out of his tire leaving like an 8” gash.  So the noises I heard were the awning pole being ripped off the wall leaving it dangling and the other from his tire popping.  We were both sort of in a state of shock and inconvenience but no one was pointing fingers because it was obviously his fault. I mean I was asleep inside an unmoving vehicle, it’s not like I hit him! Right?!? We exchange info and his wife who had totally given me weird vibes the day before at the show comes out super pissed at me and insisted that I move my RV because “everyone would be leaving for work soon”  with the urgency of if I’d been blocking an ambulance from reaching a bunch of dying babies.  I move over immediately and of course no one else drives through because only she (doesn’t work) and my friend and her boyfriend and roommate (are all bartenders who work nights) even live there!!  So the sum of the damage to my vehicle is the running light broke and the screws that attached the awning pole to the side of my rig totally broke leaving the pole dangling and there is a strip of plastic coated aluminum that covers the corner between the back and side of the rv that is bent The only thing that’s much of a problem is the awning poll so I call a body shop that’s 3 blocks away. They of course don’t have any experience with RVs but I assured the guy on the phone that if he had a drill and 2 screws he could fix it.  Sure enough, the most difficult part of the whole awning pole repair was finding the drill at the shop because I guess people don’t usually just screw their cars back together? Weird. After we get this awning reattached, I ask about the plastic aluminum piece that was bent and looked goofy. He tried to screw it back into place but apparently my RV is made of plywood that is that is quite literally rotting away. So something happened that happens in every RV repair, which is you realize that the best way to fix something is with duct tape which I of course have because I own an RV!  So I made sure to get a photo so he can put it on his website “Nick Maher Body shop, we fix RVs” 

He didn’t let me pay him for the “10 minutes of his time, 2 screws and about a foot of my duct tape because he’s on salary” Fortunately this isn’t the first time I’ve gotten mechanical stuff for free and I can only assume that me driving this big retro heap of bitchin’ is just so funny that mechanics feel like they cant charge me because they’re going to get so much joy laughing about it later with their friends. 

And it’s a good thing I got it fixed for free because I was certainly under the impression that the guy who hit my non moving vehicle while I was sleeping would pay for damages but apparently during that day his attitude went from somewhere between aloof and somewhat apologetic to insinuating that my friend should pay for the damages to his car…. That he incurred while driving it into a parked vehicle.  But somehow Jenna is responsible by association because she knows the owner of the vehicle hit… ummm… okay crazy.  But to retaliate and take their misplaced anger out on her, they changed the password in their Wifi that they share and pay half of 6 months in advance!!! So now I feel bad because I’m the link between these crazy irrational people and her :/