Things that go bump

On Monday I went to 'town' to have lunch with some friends. I was having a lovely time with my Diet Pepsi and some friendly conversation when an elderly lady walked into the restaurant and asked who had the dark blue Tahoe. I raised my hand (apparently I've been in some form of school for far too many years) and said it was mine. I was thinking perhaps I had left lights on, or maybe a door cracked open. And then she announced that she had run into my car. Seriously, one of my first thoughts was, 'What is my dad going to say?' I was raised in a house where cars were important. They were always well mantained, and my dad always noticed any new smudge or mark immediately. Even when I went to college and had my own car, everytime I came home to visit he would have something to say about any new scrapes, no matter how tiny. Thus, getting into an accident of any kind always struck fear into all of our hearts, we knew we were going to answer to him. Not that he ever got really angry, you just knew it was a bad thing! So, for this little fender bender I wasn't too worried about what Lee would think, I knew he'd be a little irritated, but he'd get over it. But I knew if I told my dad I may end up getting the third degree about the whole situation. I walked into the parking lot, expecting some horrific amount of damage to my car. Much to my relief, it was just a few scrapes and a small dent. The lady was very nice and very apologetic. We exchanged information, the whole time I was figuring I would fail to get some vital piece of information, or she would cleverly give me some silly fake name and address and I would be stuck with the repair bill. I worried about that the whole way home. Fortunately she was one of those nice, honest people and I got a call from her insurance that night. To add to my good fortune, my dad is in Hawaii and couldn't care less about cars at this point.