There
was a time as a young man that I suffered severely from migraine
headaches. One of those times in the spring of my senior year when I
driven up to the mall with my brother and good friend Cole to do some
shopping. Because I had a headache I turned the controls of the 1978
Ford Fairmont sporty two-door model to my friend so I could relax in
the passenger seat and wait for the neurological storm to pass. He
was at the stick for about 20 seconds when he lurched forward and
hit the most expensive car in the entire world, a Ford Taurus. We
were going about 2 miles an hour when the car struck but when the guy
jumped out of his car he acted like we'd assaulted him and his family
personally. His wife and baby were in the car, he didn't check on
them before he came out looked at the car. He said we ruined the
bumper, which would cost two grand to fix, because the plastic shell
had popped up in the center about 1 inch. My brother, ever the
pragmatist, walked over and pressed little bubble of plastic down
with his finger and it popped right back in place. You would think
that would mollify the guy or that his wife was telling it was no big
deal, or the fact that my friend and I were obviously terrified of
the ramifications of wrecking a car on the freedom and finances of a
17-year-old. You might be wondering why was referring to the Ford
Taurus the most expensive car possible, I mean it seems laughable,
but that is what the guy kept saying. He was going on and on about
how we really messed up and how we couldn't hit a more expensive car.
When he was otherwise occupied my brother mentioned that we could
have hit any number of more expensive cars by throwing a rock in
virtually any direction. His wife had just about talked him into
giving us a pass when a Dudley-Do-Right busybody from the local bike
shop came running out with her portable phone saying that she saw the
whole thing and she already called the cops. Okay thanks, idiot. Then
we had to wait there for the cop to arrive, he had to survey the
damage, get all of our insurance information, and hear both sides of
the story. It took forever. My friend was explaining that he had gone
from driving his truck which had differently shaped and sized peddles
and that he'd slipped off of the brake and slow rolled into the dude
that wouldn't let this thing go. After we got all sorted legal-wise,
we hit the road and spent the rest the afternoon and most of next
week making fun of the dude and his super-expensive car. I can't
remember exactly what happened with the insurance on that thing but I
want to remember I had to pay my dad back a deductible but it still
wasn't very much. Cole was kicked off the substitute driving team,
he'd had the car for less than a minute when he wrecked it with laser
like precision into the biggest douche bag around. Maybe that wasn't
his fault, but why risk it? I shudder to think if he would have hit a
Corolla.
