April 2, 2015 -- I was going to meet some buddies for happy hour at 5pm at Ray J's in Woodbury, MN. This particular day was the 2nd in a row of really high winds in the Twin Cities. Dust blowing everywhere, it was WINDY! I got to the area early and planned to find some quick P&G caches - there are many around. I picked up 11 of them in pretty quick order, as there are a lot of lamp post skirt caches in this suburban retail sprawl. My least favorite type of cache, but a smiley is a smiley.
I scored #11 in the Walmart parking lot. The back of the parking lot has another cache, and that would be my #12. I drove up to it, parked the car, and sat in the seat for a bit to read the logs. I looked up, and this 7 foot tall metal storage cart is about 15 feet away and cruising straight at my car, blown by the 30mph+ winds. I have just enough time to think "I can't start my car and drive away, and I can't get out and tackle it" and then BOOM! This cart rocks my car in the driver side rear door and falls to the ground.
I look back and see it laying there, and see this lady driving at me with a look on her face like "WOW, I just saw that happen!" I get out of the car and assess the damage. It's pretty major. I think to myself "I really don't need another insurance claim (I'd had 2 accidents and 1 stolen vehicle in the last 4 years). So I went into the store to find a manager.
It took about 10 minutes to finally get one. A few employees were aware of the situation and helped track one down. The manager was great, said sorry this happened and we'll take care of it. We went outside, saw the damage, took some photos, and went inside to fill out a report. The manager asked if there were any witnesses, and I said yes, a customer had seen it. The manager had an employee go get her, as she was buying new tires and was still in the store.
This is where it gets really good.
The lady enters the Service Dept where we filled out the report. The manager asks her if she saw the incident, she says yes. He asked her if she could give a statement about what she saw for the report. She said "No, I don't want to get involved." {Lady, come on - a crime wasn't committed here.}
He again politely asked her if she would reconsider, and she said "What am I going to get free from this store?" I, with a shocked expression, turned to look at the manager. I think he purposely didn't look at me or we would have both started laughing. She started to walk away.
At this point, I realized this was my last chance for a witness statement - and I didn't know if it was important or not, but there was space on the form for it, so I wanted one. I said "Ma'am, if this situation was reversed, I would help you out. I know you saw what happened, because we made eye contact after the cart hit my car."
Well, apparently she didn't like that either. She aggressively stepped toward me and said with a slightly raised voice "Don't you start arguing with me." I looked at her a little shocked! Then she said loudly "I'll tell you what happened. You weren't looking at that cart, I saw it. You didn't even see it. It hit your car and you looked back, and THAT'S what happened." And she walked away. The manager and I looked at each other and thought "Wow."
So, there we'd heard her statement apparently, which was basically what I said, so we're all good. We did some more paperwork, and the manager randomly muttered "I can't believe that." I said "yea, that cart was really moving." He said "No, that lady." I had to agree.
So in the end, I never did log cache #12. Went over to happy hour, told the story, had a few beers and some wings. We accomplished our agenda which was to plan our Fishing Opener trip in May, and decide on where to go on a guys vacation as we all turn 40 this fall. To get the final coordinates, click on the Certitude below, and enter the name of the non-Minnesota based big box store where this story occurred.
April 3 I brought the car in to a body shop for an estimate. $4100 it was. More to come on the story as it gets fixed. Maybe even a photo of the rental-mobile.
The final cache is hidden near a place where a lot of other fenders were dented. Can you name it?
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