It’s Good Friday, and I walk out of The Nook after a productive morning putting the finishing touches on my new home page. Picture a coffee shop right next to HoneyBaked Ham. Two days before Easter, the parking lot was a circus. Cars in, cars out, everybody in a hurry.
Yep. Someone hit the rear quarter panel on the driver’s side of my SUV and left nothing but a dent and some red and white paint.
Detective Time
I check the stores in the plaza for security cameras, then scan the street for traffic cams. Nothing. When I dropped my car off at the GM dealership body shop next door, I even asked whether they had cameras since their new cars were parked right along the edge of the plaza.
Apparently this is not one of those true crime shows where every angle gets captured in HD.
I’d like to say I was calm and in control when I left that parking lot, but I was steaming. I know it’s only a car and it can be repaired, but there was more to it than that. My wife’s car had been hit in exactly the same spot just three days earlier while parked at our rec center. Red truck. Same location on the car. Different ending.
That driver left a note with his name and number. One phone call, a few texts, and his insurance company called the next morning. Done. Just an annoyance.
Two exact same events in three days. What are the odds? Apparently 100 percent.
Same event. Totally different response.
After I cooled down, I realized that any problem I can fix with a few bucks for the collision deductible isn’t really a problem after all. It definitely didn’t deserve the reaction I gave it. And after the body shop used a little solvent to remove the red and white paint from my black SUV, except for the dent and a few scratches, it was barely noticeable.
Not everything looks as bad once you clean it up and see it in a new light.
You don’t control what hits you. You can control what sticks.