A series of unfortunate events led to the bumper on my car falling off a couple of years ago. And this is my story.

There I was, driving back to my apartment one night after work, when a steep driveway led to the first unfortunate event. I came to a steep driveway of a business and was maybe going a little faster than I should have been (which is very rare of course) and my car bottomed out. The left side of my bumper cracked, and was dragging on the ground. "Nice," I said to myself. "That's just great." I know it was my own stupidity that led to the first unfortunate event, but I was still upset.

So I proceeded to push the bumper back on, but it was only a temprorary fix. I got home, found some clear packing tape, and began taping my bumper back on. It was just a little corner I had to tape, so it wasn't too noticable. "I'll get it fixed later," I thought. But I'm a massive procrastinator when it comes to car repairs, so I taped that bad boy up for months. I thought it was fine; clear tape, bumper looked normal, everything's cool.

Then the most unfortunate event came to pass. I'm on my way home after playing a baseball game in Brookings. Picture me cruisin' in my car, talking on the phone, traveling a little over the speed limit on the interstate. Then I see something in the middle of the road. "What the heck is that?" I ask myself.  I get closer and see it's a massive piece of tire that had been blown out by some vehicle that passed by there before me. By the time I realize what it is, it's too late to avoid it. I run over it. Time stood still. Then time started again. The tire slams up under my car, hits the underside of my bumper, and rips the tape to shreds. My bumper tears off, barely holding on by one or two screws on one side. It's now just waving in the wind created by my excessive speed. So here I am going (a little) over 75mph on the interstate, bumper floating in the air like a loose finger nail.

I'm still on the phone by the way. So I tell the person on the other end of the line, "Um...I gotta go. My bumper just fell off," and hang up. I pulled over and saw that putting any more tape on was completely useless. I made the decision to rip off the bumper completely, shove it in my backseat, and drive home. 

I drove that way for months. Not just a couple of months either. More like 12 or 13 months. No bumper, my license plate strapped to the back of my car with bungie chords. It looked awful. But I don't care too much about what my car looks like. Then my good friend Kelly Manning (He likes to say he's my "boss") hooked me up with a new bumper because he said something like, "I can't stand to watch you get out of that thing anymore."

So now I drive with a pretty new bumper, and only memories of some unfortunate events of my past. And a pretty good story to tell.