After being out of the country for more than 2 weeks, I had to get used to driving again. Granted, it didn't take long, but it wasn't without its hiccups. One such instance happened on my 3rd day back. It was Wednesday, and I came home after work, which is unusual since I normally have band practice on Wednesday nights. But it was called off due to Jen being ill or something, I don't remember.We briefly tossed around the idea of jamming without Jen, but decided against it for reasons I also don't remember. So I got home very early for a Wednesday. I got out of my car, locked the door, engaged the alarm, and started strolling towards my apartment door. Then I heard a noise.  I turned around just in time to see somebody in a car that looked exactly like mine backing into the garage across the alleyway from my apartment. Then, for some reason, that car's alarm started going off. Then I noticed that no one was driving the car. By now you've figured out, as I finally did at that moment, that it was actually my car. It had slipped out of gear, and I'd apparently forgotten the parking break, and it had casually rolled backwards out of my garage, taken a 90 degree turn down the hill, and smashed, rear first into the right front facade of my neighbor's garage, doing quite a considerable amount of damage. I stood there for a moment, not really understanding what it was that I was seeing. "How did my car get there?", I wondered. "You forgot the parking brake, dumbass", I answered. My garage appears to be level, but apparently actually isn't. Considering how far I had walked before the car rolled 30 feet, it definitely started out slow. Unfortunately, that steep hill that leads up to my garage gave my car quite a bit of momentum by the time it finally impacted the other building. I must admit, the temptation to quickly pull my car back into my garage and clean off all the broken plaster and dust from the back of my car was there, but was quickly dismissed when the neighbors came running to see what the noise was all about. To their credit, my neighbors were not at all angry or upset about the incident, but were understandably amused. "Are you hurt" the woman asked. "I'm fine, I wasn't even in the car", I replied, "It did this on it's own". At this point, the male neighbor took a minute to display his amazement at the relative lack of damage to my car, compared to the near utter destruction of the garage.
Just look at this:

I definitely got lucky there. There's a crinkle in the plastic covering of my bumper, a tiny dent on my hatchback, and a scrape on the handle that opens my hatchback. The hatch opens fine. Oh, and the license plate took a direct hit, and got pretty well squished.
See?:
(NOTE: For a moment, I had posted a picture of the back of my car here, but it's generally a bad idea to post your License plate # on the internet, so I took it down. I'm smart like that.)
This is ironic, because the last time my car grew a mind of it's own and decided to smash into something without seeking my permission, it nearly destroyed the front license plate, while otherwise doing only minor cosmetic damage. I think my car resents having to wear license plates. Perhaps it is, in it's own way, rebelling against the totalitarianistic ideals that lead to having to have a license for ones own private property. But I doubt my car is that political. What sucks is that I just, about a month and a half before, got all the minor cosmetic damage from the previous incident repaired, so my car had been pristine. But, this damage is practically unnoticeable. Definitely not worth paying my deductible for repairing. Speaking of which, my insurance company will cover all the damage to the building with no cost to me whatsoever. The lesson here is: insurance pays better when your car damages anything at all other than another car. Weird. Then the police arrived, because we just wanted to get a police report for the heck of it, and they also laughed at me. Or my car. Or both. I'm sure cops like getting calls like that one, and laughing at dorks that forget their parking breaks, who's cars roll into something or other. Well, at least I now have matching squished license plates.