vituperation

August 24, 2004

I sat in my vehicle at the exit of the flea market Saturday morning, waiting to pull out into traffic and go home. On the seat beside me the bag of tomatoes and the new stump cave I’d just purchased sat in the dappling sunlight, waiting to go to their new home. My eyes were drawn to the fender-bender about 100 yards away on highway 72, in the median, and the line of rubberneckers piling up in the far lane to get a look-see as they passed.

Boy, I thought, shaking my head at the sight. That’s just an accident waiting to–

I lurched forward as something hit my vehicle from behind with a crunching thud.

My vehicle with the model year of 2004.

The one with only 4000 miles on it.

The one that was sitting still, in the parking lot.

I looked in my rearview mirror and saw nothing but the front end of a gold minivan. Turning off the engine, I climbed out and walked back to greet the elderly woman sitting behind me. She was lowering her window, red-faced, her mouth formed into a comical little ‘o’ of surprise. Next to her, her husband sat in the passenger seat, peering at me over the cane he held between his knees.

“Are you guys okay?” I asked, knowing they had to be. She wasn’t going that fast.

“We’re fine,” she said. “I am so sorry! I was looking at the accident and didn’t even see you.”

“It’s okay,” I replied, smiling. “Sometimes things like this happen.”

“Is there any damage to your car?”

I turned to look at the bumper of my vehicle. The corner she’d hit was scuffed, and had a little bit of paint missing. Behind me, the woman got out of the minivan. Her husband climbed slowly out his side and shuffled around to the front, using the minivan for support. Together we stared at the bumper. I reached out and brushed at the scuff marks.

“Looks like you just scuffed it and knocked a little paint off,” I said. “That’s not even enough to go through the hassle of getting fixed.”

“But it’s so new,” the woman said.

“Yeah, but scuffs are just part of wear and–”

Something caught my eye. I bent lower and looked closely at the bumper cover, right under the left taillight. A crack, maybe an inch long, stretched from one edge down into the cover, and I realized the section of cover to the left of the crack was sagging, knocked out of place by the impact.

Well, fuck.

“Uh oh,” I said, and pointed. “The cover is cracked and partially loose.”

I bemoaned the way new vehicles are plastic-coated and fall apart at the drop of a hat while the husband gathered their insurance information. Unsure of what proper procedure was, I called the police to ask if we needed to file a report for such a minor accident.

“If you’re both in agreement over who’s at fault,” the dispatcher said, “and it’s that small, you don’t have to file a report.”

I think it’s safe to say we were in agreement over who was at fault.

I hung up and walked back to the minivan, where I convinced the woman to let me have an old copy of their insurance card, because I couldn’t read her husband’s old-man-shaky writing. I mean, I didn’t say that’s why I wanted the card, but it is.

She apologized about ten more times, and I told her time and again that it wasn’t a problem, that things like this just happen. Finally, she seemed mollifed and we went our separate ways.

Later Saturday night, I was on the phone with my dad, listening to him wax apoplectic over the woman’s insurance company and how poorly they treat people. I won’t tell you which insurance company it is, because that would be crass, but I hear they’re like a good neighbor. You know, there.

“…insured got together and filed a class action lawsuit against them,” my father said. “For using inferior replacement parts. Their own insured sued them. And won.”

“Well, hopefully they’ve improved because of that, and I won’t have much trouble with them.”

“You just wait and see. They’re terrible. Just terri–”

Call waiting beeped in and saved me, thank God. I love my dad, but damn.

“I’ve got another call, Dad,” I said, and we ended it. I clicked over to the other line and answered the call.

“Is this Fred?” a wavery voice asked.

It was the husband, calling to get my tag number and the model of my vehicle. I walked outside to get the tag number off the back, and read it to him.

“And it’s a 2004 [name redacted],” I said. With only 4000 miles on it, my mind added. I spelled the model name of my vehicle for him, because he was unsure of the proper way.

“I thank you,” he told me when I was finished. “We’ll do whatever it takes to make this right. This isn’t the first time this has happened.”

He related a short anecdote wherein the same sort of thing happened, only he was driving instead of his wife.

“Well, I won’t take any more of your time,” he concluded. “You have a good rest of the weekend, or at least as good of one as is still possible after what happened today. We’re terribly sorry about that.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Accidents are part of life, and this one’s easily fixed.”

“Thank you again,” he replied. “For having such a Christian attitude about this.”

The irony of that comment did not escape me, and I grinned.

“I just treat people the way I want to be treated,” I said. It’s a good philosophy, methinks.

We hung up, and I went back into the house.

Next time: Repair shops, adjusters, and claims, oh my!