Sunday, January 16, 2011

So one day a car hit our sign

It was at least 9 months ago one rainy day when a car decided to take out our front sign. This sign has been standing in the same spot for at least 30 years now. Never cause anyone any problems, never hurt any one before. It use to stand about 30ish feet tall. It had 2 metal poles on either side holding up a big metal sheet that read '***** Liquors - Beer, Wine and Spirits' and then there was one of those sign boards that we would post some type of special going on.

It was a Tuesday morning, it was sort of warm out but the skies were full of rain. The sign was just standing there like it normally did, also the trash dumpster was minding it's own business, the boss' car was just sitting there all in it's normal parking spot when...

The store is located on a very busy highway, sort of sounded like a mac truck hitting a bump in the road. No one even looked out the window to see...until the guy who was sitting in his car in the parking lot came into the store and said "Um that's a mess out there." Wtf is this guy talking about, we look out and see our 2 legged sign is now down to 1 leg, the metal sheet is now waving in the wind across the busy highway hanging on by a few nails and screws, the boss' car's roof  is smashed  in and there's an unknown car sitting in the dumpster.

911, the local cops show up first, then the paramedics. The driver is fine and is walking around. The passenger isn't coming out, ugh turns out she wasn't wearing her seat beat so she got her leg caught under the dash board, her foot wasn't attached...sort of hanging. She was put on a stretcher and whisked away in an ambulance.

Nope, this guy wasn't drunk, he passed the breathalyzer test, and no, this guy wasn't trying to pull into our parking lot either. He claims he hydroplaned into the curb (which is 3 or 4 yards away from the road) and then went about 8-10 feet airborne into the sign, bounced off the boss' car and into the dumpster. It's just odd that someone would hydroplane somewhere where water doesn't collect on the road and also somehow not have control of a wheel to just hydroplane straight. The road is straight, odd indeed.

So anyway, we had to knock down the rest of the sign with the help of a friend of a friend's front-end loader. We heard later the lady with the hanging foot was ok, they put the foot back where it belonged. Yay for her! Then we also hear that the driver wants to try to sue us, lol he didn't because he couldn't. Oh and the driver wasn't the owner of the car, so some poor smuck who let their dumbass friend borrow his car has to pay for a new sign and also the boss' car (which was totaled by the way) and this guy doesn't even have a car of his own either now.

Well in my opinion the driver of the car was just an idiot and that's what caused him to hit the curb and go airborne. The guy didn't even try to hit the breaks, there were no tire marks on the road or the parking lot and also we didn't hear the squealing of wheels. Open and shut case, but whatever.

Since we knocked down the rest of the sign because it was a threat to highway, we'll have to build a whole new sign...BUT the town won't let us. Turns out there's new rules in town so the sign isn't allowed to be rebuilt on the same spot because there's talk of one day the highway might be widen to 3 lanes wide, which might be 50-100 years from now. So we have no sign. We rented one of those blinking arrow signs, that says real small "Welcome to ***** Liquors" in those letters that always fall out when it's windy.

So we are sign-less and yet people still sort of know we sell alcohol. Now we hear "You guys should put a sign out there or something!", "What happen to your sign???" or I over hear customers say to each other "I told you this was a liquor store." as they come in through the door.

Oh and in case anyone was worried the dumpster was fine, not a din or dent.

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