She's right, as usual. Suffer with a banged up car, it is.
How can you not laugh when you can see the actual shape of the license plate tattooed on the bumper? Thankfully, you cannot see the lettering of the plate. That would be over the top.
I was parked in a place I don't often park. My co-worker was parked in a place that she almost never, ever parks. (To help you visualize, there are only five other cars and one large van parked in the lot. It's a pretty empty lot and there's no traffic in it.) I was backing up to make a three point turn, so I could take the mail to our Main Office...I never, ever saw her car. I never even considered there might be a car parked there. I was on the phone with the wife...hands free, I astutely and most honestly note (the phone was in the cup holder)....I back up and BAM! I back right into my co-worker's car.
I admit a few expletives escaped from my mouth, then I exclaimed, "I have to hang up. I just hit someone."
(I assume the wife was a bit concerned about the abrupt ending of this call. Apologies to the wife.)
You cannot imagine how frustrating this is to me, as all my car accidents (that were my fault) have been in reverse. What it is about reverse, I do not know. Maybe it's my lack of peripheral vision. Maybe it's the location of the blind spots in correlation with the lack of peripheral vision. Maybe I'm just a lousy driver in reverse. No matter, I had another "in reverse accident." I got out of the car, looked at hers, looked at my and let out a few more expletives. I thanked the baby Jesus for the lack of damage to her car and then thanked the baby Jesus that I was in a private parking lot. I went in the office and told her that I had just hit her car. She looked rather amused. I suppose it is amusing when your boss hits your car--probably feels like a "one-up" kind of thing. It's easy to be amused when your boss hits your car and there is minimal damage. After she assured me she wanted nothing (no police, no report, no nothing) and after me scouring her car to ensure there was no other damage, I continued on my to drop off the mail at our office.
I should probably post a photo of her post-accident car so I can "prove" that I did no other damage....just ruined her metal license plate from the dealer....not that this employee would claim otherwise.
Okay, so she would. Why do you think I went back and took photos of her car?
While I was at the Office, I immediately filled out an incident report and hand-delivered it to the HR person. I wasn't sure if it was an incident but it seemed like it was. I then started getting nervous. Although I knew there was no real damage and she knew there was no real damage, I realized I couldn't prove I hadn't done any real damage. I got back in my car, drove to the site and took some photos. I then went inside and asked a co-worker to come see if he could find any damage. Thank god he looked and indicated he didn't see anything but the mushed licensed plate. I even asked, "Do you see anything behind the plate?" He bent down and peered in. "No, nothing."
Unsuspecting witness and photos: I was feeling much more confident.
I now have to decide what to do with my poor car. Spotted with "didn't-end-up-matching" touch up paint, scarred by shopping carts, scraped by an unseen ice burg, chipped by flying rocks and now dinged with a license plate....it's mainly damage to the paint, so I'm not sure what to do. I don't really care what my car looks like--I'm tacky that way--but, I do know I want to drive it for many more years, so it would be better if it weren't a bucket of rust because I didn't take care of the paint job. The various damaged areas do go down to the metal, so it will rust.....
I've been saving money to get a new tattoo, so I have a bit of spare change I can use to fix the car. (Well, at least pay for part of fixing the car--my tattoo savings is for a small design, not a large sleeve, so it's not exactly thousands of dollars.) Perhaps I'll check out the cost of a paint job. Perhaps I'll use a vat of touch up paint. Perhaps I'll just live with things the way they are and call it a day. Perhaps I'll paint cartoon characters all over the car, covering the damaged areas.....
Hmmmmmm....cartoon characters painted on a car......where? Where have I seen that idea before???? Oh right--on my own truck, in the mid-1980's! I'm so gonna have to find a photo of that to prove that I am not above painting cartoon characters on a perfectly good vehicle.
Come to think of it, I got in an "going in reverse" accident with that truck, too.....
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