Hail Hail The Dents Are All Here!

The writer's truck before last Friday's hail storm.

I had the extreme misfortune of not leaving working early last Friday.

I never used to leave work early on Friday, but after the paper discontinued a Saturday edition in 2009, I found that I could occasionally start my weekend around four-thirty.

But last week I didn't. It was a gray day and bad weather was headed towards Cape so I stayed put and continued working.

However, I wasn't expecting the city's tornado sirens to go off and the bad weather to include ginormous hail, some say the size of golf balls, but from my personal experience, I believe a whole lot bigger.

Unfortunately, my truck -- as well as the vehicles of many of my co-workers -- took a very bad beating from this hellaciously big hail.

It appears that if I'd been a mere mile away parked in my driveway, I would have escaped the damage. While we had hail at my house, it did not seem to be big enough to cause the noticeable damage that occurred to a lot of vehicles downtown.

So I've started the insurance claim process and the only reason I'm looking forward to paying my $500 deductible is that it is not a $1000 deductible. I guess that is the one positive aspect of the situation.

Strangely enough this is the first time I've ever had a vehicle damaged by hail. Considering that my primary vehicle always sits outside at home since our garage is reserved for our other two autos, one would think that I should have experienced hail damage at some point in the past 19 years I've lived in Cape. However, I haven't. This hail damage does have me worried.

What if this hailstorm is a warning of things to come, proof that global warming does exist and that Al Gore is not a dweebish human version of Chicken Little? What if we should start expecting a hailstorm every other week during the turbulent spring season and then again in the fall? How can one protect their vehicle from these devastating storms when you can't be parked safe in a garage?

Shall I construct a protective removable shell for my truck made of two by fours and sheets of half inch plywood, one that I could drive around town from March until July and then again in September and October?

Or should I take a tip from the Patrick Swayze movie Roadhouse and buy a clunker car that I fully expect to get dinked, dinged and possibly even its tires slashed by particularly nasty hail?

Or perhaps I should just roll the dice, pray a lot and hope for good weather?

I think it's kind of hard to say.

I just hope the auto body shop can pull out all of the dents from my truck.