Dodging bullets

It's a pretty disheartening feeling when you are unemployed, and suddenly you rear end somebodies car. And it is down right utterly demoralizing, when upon looking up to see the car you just banged, it happens to be a Mercedes Benz. At that point, you mostly just want to say the f word and throw up all over the steering wheel.

But that would merely compound the horror of the situation, and be pretty much embarrassing when you had to get out of the car and confront the Benz owner, covered in puke.

"Good job asshole! Why didn't you wa....why are you covered in vomit?"
"I don't really know."
"Sorry."
"Me too."

Anyways.

My car was covered in bikes, and my sun glasses were covered in dust. There was one particularly prominent dirt splotch right in the middle of my left eye, which I had been hopelessly focused on for about 5 blocks. Stupidly, as I was coming to a stop at a light, I decided that it was time to remove my glasses, and look down to study the splotch. For some reason, I thought I was stopped. Apparently, as was made evident by the sudden "thud" in front of me, I wasn't. I looked up, and to my utmost horror, saw the telltale doom of the Mercedes sign on the ass end of the car in front of me. On the ass end I had just plowed into. Because the dirt splotch was bothering me. Good one, idiot.

The first thing I thought was, "Oh no. Oh oh oh no. No no no no. I'm unemployed. Ohhh no." The second thing was, "Of all the cars I never hit, why did the one I finally did have to be a Mercedes? I'm unemployed. You don't hit a Mercedes when you are unemployed. Or not unemployed. Ever, really." I think out loud, that was all compounded into, "Ohhhh SHIT. I don't have a job. I can't hit a car right now."

As we pulled over to the side of the road, I was really hoping somebody would plow into the back of me, wreck Javier into oblivion, and give me some mild whiplash. Then I could just sit in the front seat, with the air bag exploded, and maybe a bloody nose, and moan and hold my neck. Then maybe the dude with the Benz would just feel really bad, and leave. I wouldn't even have to puke all over myself, AND maybe I'd get a good settlement, which would take care of both the unemployment problem, and Javier's really, ultra loud muffler.

None of that happened. I got out of my car, and he stepped out of his convertible, hunched his shoulders, lifting his hands in the air, making a pretty good "what the hell?" gesture. Which I took to mean he was going to probably be a real jerk about the whole thing. He walked over and checked out his bumper, which seemed to be completely fine. He said, "It seems completely fine." I said, "Yeah. It sure does." He said, "well, no harm no foul."

I definitely didn't expect him to be so completely magnanimous. I said I was sorry, and told him about the dust problem on my glasses. He seemed sympathetic. We then shook hands, and parted ways. I'm not sure why he shook my hand, since I certainly did my damnedest to wreck his bumper.

I think last time I felt so relieved, was when I was 14 years old. I had just moved to Nephi several months before, and was still absolutely enamored with the idea that I was going to school with a ton of polygamist children. I was in the school choir. We were heading up to a competition in Orem, on a bus. As we were passing the plig colony, just south of Santaquin, I wanted to yell something clever about the fact that we were passing a colony full of Big Love. Something like, "Hey! Look! It's the polygamists! So many wives! Baahahahah!" Something REALLY clever. But something inside me said, "Don't do it, asshole." So I didn't.

On the way back down from the competition, our bus made a detour directly into the heart of the colony. Bewildered, I wondered just what the hell was going on. Upon reaching the deepest bowels of the compound, the bus stopped, and half the kids got up and went home to their moms.

The "no harm no foul" Mercedes Benz crash felt about like that. Like I just dodged a big, fat, polygamist bullet.