Accident in the parking lot
A couple hours ago, I nicked someone's car while pulling into a parking space. I thought I had more room than I did, and I bumped into the car parked next to me. So I got out and checked the damage, but there were already a bunch of scratches around the area I hit that couldn't have been mine, so I wasn't sure if I'd actually done the damage that could have been mine.
So I wrote a little note with my name and phone number that said "I bumped into your car, but I'm not sure if I scratched it or not. Please give me a call when you come back, I should be inside shopping for a little while."
Ten minutes later I get a call from a woman who asks "Did you hit my Jeep?" It's loud in the store, so I tell her I'll be right out. I get out to the car and there's this older woman sitting in the Jeep with the windows rolled up. I walk up to her and wave and she just looks at me. I make the "roll down your window" motion and she rolls it down just a crack.
"Are you the one who left this message in my window?" she asks.
"Yes." I reply.
"Why did you tell me to call you? I don't know you." she says.
Confused, I reply "I hit your car."
"I haven't been in a car accident. I've never seen you before."
"I've never seen you before either, but I hit your car."
"Why did you do that?" she asks, as though I were telling her I did it on purpose.
Getting very annoyed, I say "I was parking. I bumped into your car. By accident."
"Did you do any damage?" she asks.
"I have no idea. That's why I said I'm not sure in the note. Didn't you check?"
"No." she says.
"Well why don't you take a look?" I ask.
She take her phone back out. "I'm going to call the police."
"Why are you calling the police? We don't even know if I did any damage to your car. Why don't you go check first? If there's no damage, there's no need to call anyone." I say.
"I don't know you. You just come put some paper on my car. I don't know what you're going to do to me if I get out of the car. You could do anything to me." She says, all this with her window still only opened a crack.
Let me take a minute to set the scene here. It's 6:30 PM. We're in a lit parking lot, in a small plaza with a Petsmart, a Best Buy, and a Whole Foods. The parking lot is packed, there are people everywhere with pets and children. This is Aventura, which, for those of you who are not South Floridians, is a pretty good neighborhood. I'm wearing my Levin College of Law T-Shirt and I'm with Megan's mom, who is holding a bag of organic groceries. She looks like she's in her late 50s, with wrinkly skin that looks like leather.
If there was a numeric scale, ranging from 1 to 10, for rating the likelihood that you are about to get raped, this would merit at best a 2. This is probably right below "getting put under for some dental surgery" and right above "Giving the state of the union address on live television in front of the White House with secret service all around."
So I think I was understandably annoyed at this point. I throw up my hands in surrender. "Fine, forget it. You don't want to check your car, I'm leaving."
I walk back to my car and start getting in, and finally she comes out and says "Ok, Ok, I'll check." She looks it over and says she sees a few scratches that weren't there before. Then she tries to get me to just give her cash instead of calling my insurance company and reporting it, which I don't do (still unemployed, so cash isn't really an option at this point).
She's going on about how she was going to trade the Jeep in soon and would need to be getting the scratches fixed so she doesn't lose money on the trade-in. This thing has a bunch of scratches all over it. Even right above where I hit it (because it's way to big and sticks out of its space, I imagine I'm not the first). So now I'm getting worried this woman is going to try to have all the other scratches fixed at my expense too (or my insurance company, I'm not really sure if this is going to come out of my pocket or not, they're getting back to me Monday). I tried to take a picture before she left, but my phone's camera is a 1MP piece of crap and you can't see anything.
Seriously though, my car has dozens of nicks and scrapes that I know I didn't put there, and even some pretty vicious key-scratching on the trunk, and I've never gotten a note about any of it. I'm not saying she should have been thrilled about it or even thanking me; I was just trying not to be an asshole. I'm just saying maybe she shouldn't have implied that I was trying to rape her.
So I wrote a little note with my name and phone number that said "I bumped into your car, but I'm not sure if I scratched it or not. Please give me a call when you come back, I should be inside shopping for a little while."
Ten minutes later I get a call from a woman who asks "Did you hit my Jeep?" It's loud in the store, so I tell her I'll be right out. I get out to the car and there's this older woman sitting in the Jeep with the windows rolled up. I walk up to her and wave and she just looks at me. I make the "roll down your window" motion and she rolls it down just a crack.
"Are you the one who left this message in my window?" she asks.
"Yes." I reply.
"Why did you tell me to call you? I don't know you." she says.
Confused, I reply "I hit your car."
"I haven't been in a car accident. I've never seen you before."
"I've never seen you before either, but I hit your car."
"Why did you do that?" she asks, as though I were telling her I did it on purpose.
Getting very annoyed, I say "I was parking. I bumped into your car. By accident."
"Did you do any damage?" she asks.
"I have no idea. That's why I said I'm not sure in the note. Didn't you check?"
"No." she says.
"Well why don't you take a look?" I ask.
She take her phone back out. "I'm going to call the police."
"Why are you calling the police? We don't even know if I did any damage to your car. Why don't you go check first? If there's no damage, there's no need to call anyone." I say.
"I don't know you. You just come put some paper on my car. I don't know what you're going to do to me if I get out of the car. You could do anything to me." She says, all this with her window still only opened a crack.
Let me take a minute to set the scene here. It's 6:30 PM. We're in a lit parking lot, in a small plaza with a Petsmart, a Best Buy, and a Whole Foods. The parking lot is packed, there are people everywhere with pets and children. This is Aventura, which, for those of you who are not South Floridians, is a pretty good neighborhood. I'm wearing my Levin College of Law T-Shirt and I'm with Megan's mom, who is holding a bag of organic groceries. She looks like she's in her late 50s, with wrinkly skin that looks like leather.
If there was a numeric scale, ranging from 1 to 10, for rating the likelihood that you are about to get raped, this would merit at best a 2. This is probably right below "getting put under for some dental surgery" and right above "Giving the state of the union address on live television in front of the White House with secret service all around."
So I think I was understandably annoyed at this point. I throw up my hands in surrender. "Fine, forget it. You don't want to check your car, I'm leaving."
I walk back to my car and start getting in, and finally she comes out and says "Ok, Ok, I'll check." She looks it over and says she sees a few scratches that weren't there before. Then she tries to get me to just give her cash instead of calling my insurance company and reporting it, which I don't do (still unemployed, so cash isn't really an option at this point).
She's going on about how she was going to trade the Jeep in soon and would need to be getting the scratches fixed so she doesn't lose money on the trade-in. This thing has a bunch of scratches all over it. Even right above where I hit it (because it's way to big and sticks out of its space, I imagine I'm not the first). So now I'm getting worried this woman is going to try to have all the other scratches fixed at my expense too (or my insurance company, I'm not really sure if this is going to come out of my pocket or not, they're getting back to me Monday). I tried to take a picture before she left, but my phone's camera is a 1MP piece of crap and you can't see anything.
Seriously though, my car has dozens of nicks and scrapes that I know I didn't put there, and even some pretty vicious key-scratching on the trunk, and I've never gotten a note about any of it. I'm not saying she should have been thrilled about it or even thanking me; I was just trying not to be an asshole. I'm just saying maybe she shouldn't have implied that I was trying to rape her.