It's not every day a car lands in your yard.

One of the first photos we got of the car.

I had to write about this. It’s the most bizarre thing that happened to us in quite a while.

On Tuesday morning at 4:13am, I was near wakefulness, but not yet awake. (I get up at 5am, so sometimes I’m restless the hour before the alarm goes off.) I heard squealing tires and a loud bang. I opened my eyes in time with another bang, and the sight of headlights in our yard. I tossed back the covers, leapt out of bed, and said, “There’s a car in the yard! Call the police!”

For those of you who don’t know, our backyard is sunken. It’s surrounded by a five foot stone wall and sits below the streets to the front and the side of it. I assumed someone was injured in the car as it would have had to fly off of that drop.

I listened to Dean on the phone with 911 while I pulled on jeans and found my glasses. As I ran toward the back door to see if anyone needed help, I heard Dean telling them that he was running away. I ran out the backdoor and saw that yes, the car was empty. And hissing gently. I vaguely hoped it wouldn’t explode.

The police arrived in record time. We had about ten of them out at one point. I remember one of them looking at the car, then she looked at me and said, “I’m just wondering… how they’re gonna get it out of here.”

I had been wondering the same thing.

The reporting officer asked if I could see any damage, other than the obvious damage to the lawn. I said, surprisingly… no. The car had gouged out some wood on the edge of our deck, but amazingly, threaded the needle between the back fence, support beam, trees, compost, Edison light string, etc. Even our flower pots were undisturbed. They ran the temporary plates and saw that it wasn’t stolen.

Police asked if we had seen the guy, I pointed at Dean, as he was the one who saw him running. Dean said he couldn’t give a good description because it was dark and he didn’t have his glasses on. They found “stolen items” in the car, but didn’t give me any more detail than that. Suddenly the car showed up as stolen, the police were suspicious. Shortly after that, a couple of different officers knocked on our back door to ask again if we could describe the guy. We couldn’t, but turns out a guy had been strolling up the street from the direction Dean had indicated the driver had run. Eventually they got him to admit that he had lied and reported his car stolen after he crashed it. Apparently he already had a felony and was due in court for it that morning. They took him away.

I took this on the way out for my bike ride. You can see the wall better here.

A while later, we saw a tow truck pull up. I asked Dean if it would be alright if I went on my bike ride, because really, what we we doing here? As long as someone was available to answer questions, we figured it would be fine.

It was a little strange wheeling my bike out around a car just squatting in the middle of my lawn. As I rode by, I heard the one officer who was left telling the tow truck driver that they were the closest one in the area. Apparently the driver refused the job.

When I returned, a new tow truck was there. They had decimate our back fence and were getting the car out that way. The cop apologized and said it was the only way they could get the car out.

I called our insurance later. They said we would need to get the guy’s insurance from the police report and contact them. We could start a claim of our own with our insurance, and then they would go after his insurance later, but we would have to pay the deductible first, which is $2,500. They said we couldn’t move or fix anything until an adjuster came out to look at the damage. Annoying.

Later that afternoon, Dean was at work, and I was just taking a break to stretch my legs and decided to go check the mail. I was at the mailbox when a dude approached me asking if this was my house. I said it was and he asked if he could talk to me for a second. I gave him a wary look and backed up a few steps as he took a few steps closer and said, “Okaaay?” He then informed me that he was the dude who had crashed into my yard earlier and that he was sorry.

“Okay, you gonna get me a new fence?” I said, still keeping several feet between us. I didn’t need him to be any closer to hear him.

“I will get you a new fence, I promise, I’ll fix your fence, I just need some time. I guess I had some stuff in the car that I wasn’t supposed to have, and I’m sorry about that and I just got outta jail for it, but I just need some time, please, I just need a month—”

“All I need from you is your insurance information.”

“I don’t have insurance. I should have insurance. I wish I had insurance. But I’ll fix your fence, I promise, I just need time.”

Reader, you will understand that I was not interested in exchanging phone numbers or contact information with this individual. He already knew where I lived. I was also not interested in waiting a month to get my fence fixed based on the dubious word of a man who had crash landed a charger in my backyard at 4:13am.

“If you don’t have insurance, I’m going to have to make a claim with my insurance, and they’ll be contacting you based on the information on your police report.” I walked toward the door.

“Real quick… can I look in your backyard for my keys?”

You can see a piece of car hanging off the wall in the exact spot he went over.

“Your keys are not in my backyard.”

“Okay… I guess they could be in the car. I just… I had this special thing on them so that no one would steal my car, you know?”

Dude, your car is not going anywhere for a very long time. “The police took everything that was back there.”

“Okay, so … are we cool?”

“I mean… this is not ideal. This has not been an ideal morning.” I continue to the door.

“I’m so sorry… just… do you have everything you need?”

“Everything I need is on that police report apparently.”

“Okay… I’m sorry.”

Instinctively, I felt like I should sign off with something like “Nice to meet you” except it wasn’t, or “Be safe” but what came out of my mouth was, “Drive safer!”

I regret nothing.

Well, I regret that he somehow missed ALL of the paved roads and crash landed into my yard, but it could have been worse. I believe that the fact that the front axle cracked in two upon impact kept the car from continuing forward into the house, which would have been a nightmare and a much worse way to wake up. So I’ll remain thankful, and hope that insurance is able to take care of the rest.