January, 2011:

It was a dark and stormy night. No, seriously.

I was pulled over to the side of the road behind this guy in East Sacramento on J St. and he was yelling at me in the rain through the two inches of open window I had hesitantly rolled down in order to show him I would listen to his ranting. I had already locked the doors before he approached because he was walking around his car and hitting it before I even pulled over.

“Why did you do that?” he yelled at me through the two inches. “Didn’t you see me? What were you thinking?” And blah, blah, blah. I was kind of frozen. We both were, my husband and I. We sat in stunned silence as this man couldn’t believe what a night he was having and how unbelievable my actions were. I had trouble figuring out how to respond to this man because he was so angry and out of his mind and very upset, but when he finally stopped for a second to take a breath, I said the only thing I could think of.

“But you hit me…. you rear-ended me.”

Well, that stopped him for about three seconds before he launched again into how it was all my fault and didn’t I see him flashing his headlights at me and why was I driving so slow and why did I stop at the yellow light.

I stopped because it was red, actually. I mean, it was yellow when I first saw it, but I was at one of those distances that indicates one should stop because by the time you get to the actual intersection part it will be red and then you will be running a red light and if anyone behind you wishes to go through the intersection as well, they would really really be running a red light.

So I stopped. I did not slam on my brakes, but after I had come to a complete stop I heard some skidding behind me and then, “THUMP!” Right into us. He immediately drove around me and I thought he was going to take off and told my husband, “Oh my God get his license number he’s taking off”. But instead he pulled over and began beating the crap out of his car as I pulled up behind him. That’s when I locked the doors and waited for him to cool down as he yelled at me through my two inches of open window.

After we stepped outside to survey the damage, I walked around to my bumper and was surprised to see very little damage to my back bumper because I had already seen his hood and it folded up like an accordion. This guy followed me around and still pleaded his case that it was my fault and his mother was in the ICU and he had been with her all day and now his insurance is going to go up and kept asking me to admit that it was my fault. He was like a little yappy dog biting at my ankles.

I kept silent because what can you say to a crazy man who is trying to make you responsible for his mistakes? I just wanted to swap insurance information and get out of there. I hate conflict and go fetal when it occurs and I didn’t like that this man wanted me so desperately to accept responsibility and pay for his damage and whatnot.

It was at this moment I realized there must have been a mix-up at the director’s meeting for this scene because this guy thought he had been cast as the victim.

So when he paused to take another breath, I said, “Unless you want to discuss the definition of tailgating, I suggest we just exchange information and be on our way.”

Which was probably too subtle of a way to tell him that this was all his fault and that he should just shut the EFF up about it already. My mother often said never to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man. But there I was, swinging blindfolded at a pinata-less birthday party. He probably felt the same way.

I could have stomped and screamed and if necessary, cried, but that’s just not me. And I wish that guy knew how lucky he was to have hit me and not some normal person who emotes when she’s upset.

I was also convinced he had no insurance, especially when he failed to produce proof of it.

And I wanted to take a picture of his car because I knew this would end up on the blog.

So basically, it was just one injustice after another on this evening.

And when you see my bumper and say, “Oh my God!”, all I can say now is, “Yeah, but you should see the other car!”, but I was afraid to piss the guy off even more. Even though I should have been the one marching around and throwing my arms up in the air in self-righteous indignation. Did I mention how unfair this all was?

Meanwhile, two witnesses came over who “saw the whole thing” and also feared for our lives when they saw this guy punching his car in the face and yelling at us. They told the self-proclaimed victim that it was all his fault. Eventually, everyone who came together that night, whose lives intersected for one brief hour, who impacted each others’ souls to some degree, all went back to their own lives.

I was shocked to find out later that this guy had insurance, but that might explain why he drove off and then came running back a few minutes later on foot, and asked us to write down on some envelope that we had no bodily injury and sign our names.

That was the closest he ever came to asking me if I was okay.

What I did not appreciate was his insurance claim representative not identifying herself as representing his side as she took down my statement over the phone. I mistakenly thought it was someone from MY side because coincidentally we had the same insurance company. I felt manipulated and duped somehow, but it didn’t change the outcome, they still took full responsibility and accepted the liability.

So yeah, I got my car repaired, but not after finding out that if you don’t have some top secret extra option on your insurance for OEM (original equipment manufacturer), you will not get stock replacement parts, but rather, cheap foreign knock-offs that may or may not fit or have the same quality or integrity as your car. Nice.

Also, the insurance company will call your body shop repair guy every hour on the hour asking, “Is it done yet? Is it done yet? Is it done yet?” because you have a rental car as part of the deal and even though they already set a high standard of declaring that this repair should only take two days, they begin hounding your body shop repair guy three hours after you’ve dropped it off.

This claims rep is the same yahoo who drew all over the back of my car.

OK, actually I don’t give a rat’s about the pink drawings, I just couldn’t think of another excuse to show this picture to you. Maybe we could play a game or something like where you guess what this drawing looks like. Like how you do with clouds.