Fender-Bent

My wife and I were returning home after getting lunch at the Olive Garden yesterday (gotta love the soup/salad/breadsticks deal). We were in Glendale at the time, hoping to get out of that shit-hole of a town as soon as possible. While sitting there, car idling, waiting for traffic to move, out of nowhere a van slams into the back of our car and gives us a heavy jolt.

The guy driving the van gets out and asks if we are ok, and I tell him that we should move the cars into the Gold's Gym parking lot directly to the left of us to get out of the way of the traffic. We do so, and then I notice that we've been hit by a City of Glendale Parks & Recreation van. He immediately calls his supervisor and then the police so they can get an accident report. Which is fine by me. That moron rear-ended me. I want this to be done right.

So we sit around and wait for the cops to come around. A woman office shows up and starts taking down all of the information. She looks at both vehicles, fills out the forms, takes statements of what happened. My car didn't seem like it was all that banged up. Some scratches on the rear bumper, and it's not fitting as perfectly as it did before. I did notice some clicking/chirping afterwards though.

So, after the guy takes off in his City of Glendale van, it's just the cop, my wife, and I. I am standing next to the cop, waiting for her to finish up her report. I hear the radio going off about some code 4. I figure that, since I'm not a criminal, I can ask the cop about that and not get a night-stick to the side of my head. I was almost right. Here's how that went.

"Officer, what's a code 4?"
"What. What do you mean?"
"Oh, heard that on your little radio there. It said 'code 4'. I was curious".
"Why" (with a bit of a stern tone).
"I'm sorry. I was just curious."
"It means no assistance needed."

She looked visibly annoyed by my attempt at small talk. I could feel my wife pinching the side of my leg to get me to stop talking. I guess she could tell that the officer was not having any of my conversation attempt. So, I shut up. I didn't need to add the pain of getting clubbed to the whiplash I was (and still am) feeling.

So, moral of the story. Stay out of Glendale. And if you are in Glendale, don't talk to the cops. And yes, I am planning of suing the City of Glendale. Talking to some lawyers right now. See what my best options are.