Winnemucca and Other Places I’ve Never Been


 


I’m nearing the end of my formal remote classroom training, and this week I officially did the thing: I settled actual claims. For actual people. For actual damage. From behind a desk in beautiful North Carolina.

Somewhere in California, a check is on the way. Same for someone in Las Vegas. And Alabama. And Ohio. Even a claim from Winnemucca, Nevada landed on my screen.

Which is how I ended up humming Johnny Cash all day:

"I was totin' my pack along the dusty Winnemucca road..."


 So I wound up humming Johnny Cash all day, thinking about all the places in that song—Reno, Barstow, San Antoni—places I’ve never been but somehow feel like I have after hearing them loop through my brain for hours. Winnemucca, of course, started it, but by lunch I’d mentally traveled to every dusty town and two-lane highway from the lyrics, like I was on some weird honky-tonk pilgrimage without ever leaving my chair. By mid-afternoon, I wasn’t just totin’ my pack—I was praying for the earworm to stop!

At first, the whole Adjusting Process felt a little overwhelming—like walking into a cockpit instead of a car. I’ve written tens of thousands of estimates in my life, but this is a whole different animal. Multiple screens. Layers of reports. Accident descriptions that sometimes go on for paragraphs.

Back when I was in the shop, they’d give you a sentence. Maybe two. Usually vague. Sometimes cryptic. Almost always hilarious.

I used to say I wanted to save the best ones and turn them into a coffee table book. We even had a little game where we tried to finish the ones that ended mid-thought—like collision-themed Mad Libs.

“I was driving into the sun on I-90 when a bee flew into the car and I turned...”

That’s all they’d give you. We’d stand around looking at the wreck and try to figure out the rest.

Or this one:

“I was making a left turn when all of a sudden the baby said its first word in the backseat and...”

We’d pass it around like a writing prompt:

  • “...and it was a curse word, so I drove into a telephone pole.”

  • “...and it was ‘Fight the power!’ and everybody in the car clapped.”

Sometimes we asked the customer what actually happened—but sometimes it was more fun not to know.

Now I’m on the other end of that mystery. Reading real damage reports. Reading Transcripts from real people who are having very real, very inconvenient days. And it feels kind of great. I still catch myself second-guessing things—not because I don’t know what I’m doing, but because I want everything to be perfect.

But life rarely is. I already had a flagged reinspection come through, and guess what? After panicking for Two hours It passed just fine. Nothing wrong with it.

Next week, I’ve still got some hurdles:

  • The Pennsylvania license exam.

  • An old-school ink fingerprint session for my background check at the local sheriffs station

  • Another trip to Florence, South Carolina to get fingerprinted again, this time for New York—even though I already did it once for another state. (Apparently my fingerprints are very popular right now.)

With any luck, I’ll get to do some virtual ride-alongs next week too—getting even closer to being “the real deal.”

I might not be on the road like Johnny Cash was, but for now, it feels pretty cool to be connected to places I’ve never even been—one damaged fender at a time.

Until next time, I’ll be here in North Carolina, settlin’ claims and humming classic country against my will.

Location: Winnemucca, NV 89445, USA

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