I'm an okay driver. Careful, not especially confident but much more than I used to be after all these years. I don't really get scared about driving places anymore, but I will happily take the opportunity to be driven if possible - except on long road trips, where I kind of like being on my own and blasting my own music the whole way. Before January I had never been in an accident, although once when the kids were little and Matt was away and it was the dead of winter and I was running on no sleep, I dropped the kids at school and then backed into a light post and cracked the back bumper. But this year, on an icy day in January, I was heading home from work and merged into the left turning lane close to home. The arrow was green and the car in front of me looked like it was going to go, but then didn't, so she slammed on her brakes and I slammed on my brakes, which would have been fine except it was icy, so I slid into her, fairly gently but definitively.
It was immediately apparent that this was a very minor thing with no injuries, but GOD, what a horrendous, icky, mortifying feeling. The other driver was a woman who spoke French - Hatian, maybe - and was really upset. Not angry, necessarily, just freaked out, which fair enough. Her teenaged daughter helped with the exchanging of insurance information and licenses. The back of her SUV was covered in snow and it wasn't clear that there was any damage at all. My front bumper had a crack in it. I called Matt and made sure he thought I had everything covered. When he got home we drove to the collision center.
I fully expected to be treated like an idiot, if not a criminal, at the collision center. Instead there was this hilarious, maternal Black woman walking around with an air cast on one foot helping everyone who made me feel instantly better. She took the insurance from my husband, wandered off and wandered back with a pen and said "you didn't sign it. That's a 130 dollar fine. I know that, because I paid it!" She told us about buying a Camaro and the dealership had done the paperwork so she figured it was good, and then she sped off "burning the gunk out of the engine" and got pulled over and got a speeding ticket "which I deserved!" and a fine for the insurance form not being signed, which seemed unjust. I was already in love with her, so later when I started coughing and she wandered over and got something from a cupboard and then took my hand to gently pour some mints in it I was looking at her with literal heart eyes.
There was a sort of video-game-board thing where you had to move your car around on the virtual street to demonstrate the accident. I am not good at video games and have no depth perception, so it took longer than it should have, and we were giggling by the end. Then we saw another guy at a desk who was also very matter-of-fact and consoling - he said "look around, this place isn't usually this full". The whole experience was much less terrible than anticipated.
So fine, except Matt keeps saying he wants to take care of setting up the repair and is never in the country so keeps not doing it. Which, still fine, honestly because I could not possibly care any less about my car having cracks in it and needing body work (honestly, same girl same.)
THEN, last week after bar night, I got in my car to go home. I was parked nose to nose with my friends Michael and Margot (Matt was in Belgium). I backed straight out, and just as I was checking the mirror and preparing to turn the wheel to curve out to the right, I heard a smash.
I know! Like, are you fucking kidding me.
As soon as I opened the door, I heard a voice saying "Oh my god, I'm so sorry", and basically relaxed because as long as it wasn't my fault I was pretty much okay with whatever happened next. Two of my friends were still there, and came over as a very nice young waitress from the bar apologized and gave me her information. She said she could just give us some money instead of going through insurance, and I told her I'd get back to her, but really I was already pretty much deciding we would just pay for it. She's my daughter's age and she's a waitress and I've been a waitress, and I am fairly certain we can absorb the cost of a few hundred dollars better than she can. I gave her a hug and told her not to stress. Fortunately Matt agreed with me when I told him about it. I'm thinking of it as banking a little karma.
So now I have matching front and back bumper cracks. All the lights still function, which was my main concern. And hey, when we finally get it in for repairs they can do it all at once. Weird way to ..... hang on.... jesus lord, babies, I literally had to google 'word for efficiency-ing something' to obtain the word 'optimize'... weird way to optimize the repair process, but it's me, I am not normal.
You know what would have prevented that whole debacle? If we had both BACKED IN. I did not because it was dark when I got there and it's a very crowded parking lot. And now I'm more afraid to, because every time I'm in a car at all I am braced for a bang crunch. Oh well. Could have been worse.
No comments:
Post a Comment