someone told me that i have become much more witty in my old age. sometimes i notice things i say, and think this might be true. if it is, it sort of makes me happy. i’ve always wanted to be witty.
today’s been great. i got up this morning and played soccer with a bunch of people from work, some i knew and some i didn’t. it was a lot of fun, even though we ended up losing 3-2. after the game i rushed home to take the world’s quickest shower, and put on my shiny silver skirt to join debbie, curt, and chris for a matinee of seussical the musical at the new hobby performing arts center downtown. the musical was amusing and the new theater (it opened in april) was quite nice. afterward, we walked over to bayou place for an early dinner.
ok, so on to bigger and better tales. last night we went out to dinner and a movie. the dinner was sub-par, the movie was silly, but the real story is what happened in the parking lot just before dinner. chris was about to pull his van into the handicapped spot when a young kid who wasn’t looking where he was going backed his car right into chris’s left rear wheel. yikes! it made quite a crunching sound, so we parked and all got out to look. the kid’s car (a complete piece-of-crap old ford tempo) was in bad shape, with the rear bumper hanging on by a thread. granted, the car wasn’t in any sort of good shape to begin with, but now the bumper was hanging off.
the kid gets out and looks very worried. he awkwardly explains that he literally just bought the car like 4 hours beforehand, and, to be quite honest, he hasn’t had a chance to call geico yet. chris, debbie and i exchange glances. the kid doesn’t have insurance. the damage to chris’s van is minimal, while the kid’s car is in more dire condition. as chris is deciding how nice of a guy he wants to be (because, of course, you call the police and the kid will likely get in major trouble for driving without insurance, the kid bends down to inspect the damage, and touches the bumper.
now, you know how in the road runner and coyote cartoons when the coyote gets exploded and he just stands there before disintegrating into a pile of ashes when the road runner comes up and blows on him? well that’s what happened to this kid’s car! he barely touched the bumper, and the entire thing just fell right off the car. the entire bumper. i wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry, but i was definitely leaning towards laughter. the situation just seemed so absurd.
we stood there, chris not sure what to say, but hinting that he was willing to let things slide. after a minute i spoke up and said to the kid “ok, well, you have two options. you can settle this right here and decide to just leave things as they are, as i think chris is willing to do (as chris nodded next to me). if you have any ideas of getting insurance to cover the damage you can call the police and get an accident report. but to tell you the truth, i have no idea whose fault this was…” (see, the kid was backing up through another row of empty parking spaces without looking, but chris was driving on the wrong side of the parking lot lane in preparation for parking, so i dunno who was technically at fault.) “…and so if you call the police, whatever way they decide, you’re likely going to get into some serious trouble for not having insurance at all. so the ball is in your court.”
the kid immediately blurted out that he didn’t want to involve the police, so in the end, chris decided to give the kid a really lucky break and just let things slide since the damage to his van wasn’t that great. we then stood in the parking lot for another couple minutes awkwardly watching the kid try to figure out what to do with the bumper to his car. he was going to try to fit it in his trunk, and actually bent the bumper even more than it had been originally trying to compact the thing. i offered a half-hearted “i think you’re going to have to put it in your backseat.” with nothing we could do, we headed to the restaurant and told the kid that if he needed us, we’d be inside for the next hour. when we came out, he was gone.
anyway. after the movie we came home and i tried in vain to figure out how to use my remote control. see, i just got digital cable installed and the guys who installed it while i was at work didn’t program the remote correctly. chris and debbie couldn’t figure it out either so finally i had to call customer service. i felt soooo dumb.