Thursday, July 19, 2012

The Universe is the Mean Guy at Open Mic

So like I mentioned in the last entry, I gave notice at my job.
Without saying who I worked for, I will tell you for the last 7 years I've been handling auto insurance claims.
I have never had an auto accident myself.
Until last night.
Which is even more ironic, because I've had a car for the last 7 years, until a few months ago.
So of course it makes sense I get into a car accident not when I own a car, but when I am carless and just about to be free of the auto insurance game.
I was borrowing my friends truck, bringing it to him.
It is a very big truck.
I back out of the driveway and hit a parked car across the street.
No one saw it. I could have just left. But what kind of shithead does that? So I get out, walk up to the house the car is parked in front of.
I can't go up to the door because there is a very angry dog going nuts in the front yard.
Their front door is open, I shout and wave until I get their attention.
Finally they come out.
I tell them I hit their car. I offer them all my information. I tell them I do this sort of stuff for a living, so I would make sure they had everything they needed. I give them my license, the plate number, all the contact information. She insists we had to call the police. She calls the police. I can hear them on the phone asking if this is a hit and run. "No I'm standing right here with her. No, I want a police report. Just come out." She hangs up.
Then I give her the owner's information, and advise what kind of insurance he has.
I see a switch literally flip on in this woman's head. But not like, a lightbulb.
"Why are you driving someone else's car?"
I explain I was on my way to meet him, and that he had biked down to the beach, but now he was on his way back up here.
"Why would you be driving someone else's car? That makes no sense. Where is he?"
I explain it again.
"Where is your insurance?"
I tell her I don't have insurance, because I don't own a car, but that insurance follows the vehicle, not the driver, and so the claim will be under his truck insurance anyway.
"sure sure" she narrows her eyes at me.

We wait.
My friend comes back, puts his bike in the driveway, and walks across the street to come talk to her.
"Where did he come from?"
I tell her he just got here.
"Why is he coming from over there?"
I explain he just put his bike away.
"Well I didn't see him bike up, did you see him get here?" she asks her daughter. The daughter shakes her head no.
"I'm fast," my friend says, smiling, trying to remain friendly.
" sure sure sure. huh. huh. huh. HUH. HUH. HUH" she says dramatically squinting her eyes at us and throwing her chin back. "Well I think something's going on here. I think you were not driving," she says to me.
"Ma'am, I was driving."
"I think he was driving."
"He just got here ma'am. He was just putting his bike away."
"Huh."
My friend tries to talk to her, she tells him that she refuses to talk to him at all, and she will only talk to the police.

I offer to call the insurance right now with her there and get everything set up and started, since we're just standing here.
"don't you dare call yours, I'm not talking to yours, I'm calling mine, I'm calling mine right now."
I offer to speak to her insurance and give my statement.
"No, I don't want you talking to anyone, this is my insurance."
I give up.

We wait another 40 minutes for the police.
He finally comes, an older officer. She walks right up to him and asks him if he's even awake. I tell him what happened. He takes my paperwork and starts filling out the report. She walks down the street to a neighbor who's just come out of his house to see the commotion. They talk for a while. The insurance side of me realizes that this woman is trying to get this guy to say he witnessed my friend driving, not me. I tell myself that my job has made me bitter and distrusting, and to let it go. My friend gives me a cigarette even though we quit the day before. I smoke it while I'm chewing my gum.
(I start to cry. This is my first car accident, I've done everything I've supposed to, and this woman is treating me like a criminal. And I already feel horrible and bad for doing this in my friend's car to begin with. And he's being so sweet and kind, and telling me not to worry about, and just being the best sort of guy ever, which is only making me cry more, and shit now I'm the girl crying in front of the cops and in front of my friend, this guy who I don't know all that well but really really like, and I've just blown everything pretty much)
This woman takes the officer aside, and expounds her theory of drivers.
The officer tells her that if I am right there, admitting I hit the car, then it doesn't matter. She is obviously pissed off at his response, but seems slightly mollified when he asks me to sit in the back of the cop car to go over the information. He leaves the door open, but I can see her standing on the porch thinking "he should arrest that lying bitch."
I fantasize about being the type of person who leaves an accident scene.

He runs everything, it's fine, he writes me a ticket for improper backing and hands me a court date.
"Why does she think that other guy was driving?"
"I have no idea. I mean, I stopped, I found her, I admitted it was my fault. I think she's freaked out I'm not the owner, but I tried to explain to her that's not how insurance law works. She won't listen. I don't understand why."
He shrugs and doesn't ask again.
He will not give me any of her information, he tells me to get it from the report, which should be ready in two days. I asked him if maybe he could try explaining to her that if I don't give her info to our insurance, it will take longer for her? He refuses to intervene, and tells me to just wait for the report.

I go over to her daughter, who is standing at the fence watching. I tell her it's all set, and I try once again to explain that if they do not call my friend's insurance, then the insurance will not be able to reach them until they get the report, which can take weeks. I tell her to tell her mom to call in and talk to them. She shrugs. Her mother is standing inside the screen door now, glaring at me.

My friend and his friends take me to the bar and I get trashed and later get into a philosophical argument with my friend where at one point I'm crying again about his perception of the value of art, and I'm telling him he's judgmental and classist, and then I'm apologizing more, and I go to bed feeling like the absolute worst human being that has ever existed because this guy has been so nice to me and such a good friend, and I'm lashing out at him AFTER I CRASH HIS CAR because maybe I am a terrible person and I deserved for that woman to treat me that way.

AND THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS.

7 comments:

  1. That woman is INSANE. I wish you had just left. She deserved it. What a freaking B. Most people would've just left and why would you lie about driving the car? What a freak. Where is she? I wanna find her! I am so mad.

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  2. Next time, leave the scene. Here's hoping you've learned your lesson. Now come this way, already. It's hot as a MFer but they have sweet ice tea and banana cream pie.

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  3. Try not to think about it, and when you do take deep breaths. YOU did everything right, this woman has been raised to think that people are out to get her, to be suspicious of everyone and to take people for all they're worth whenever she can, you have been raised to be a good human being, which you are.

    One time a girl backed into my friend while she was driving her brother in laws car, the girl got out of the car and proceeded to talk down to my friend, it was the first and last time I've gotten so close to a physical fight in a Taco Bell Parking lot, and my heart was racing for the next week. Thankfully some male friends showed up to literally "hold me back" while this girl threatened me with her "cousins".

    At least you put a cigarette in your mouth before you said anything dumb like I did...

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  4. Her distrust of you is a comment on HER not on you.

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  5. I have had two types of experiences dealing with people in situations like this (not that I have a ton of accidents but you know, you drive a car long enough you run into stuff) and they either don't give a shit or they act like you gunned down a bus full of little babies or something. I am sorry you ended up with the latter, lollipop.

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  6. You did the right thing. Be proud of yourself.

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  7. shit like this used to happen to me all the time, then eventually i (a) stopped driving and (b) stopped giving a fuck.

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