Friday, October 26, 2007

My So-Called Life

A girl tries to go to the gym, because she figures it's probably the right thing to do to cap off a hell of a week following a catastrophic hard drive crash and the subsequent clamor toward recovery. The girl is so stressed about her job when she's leaving the parking lot after her workout, she's telling fer friend all about it on the phone, while backing up through the maze of Land Rovers and H3s and Lexuses (Lexi?) in the fancy gym parking lot. You know what happens next.

But it's the part after I hit the parked Mercedes E320 that was surprising. After I called mom ("You're alive, you're ok, these things happen..." Thank god for moms, I swear), I pulled out my reporter's notebook and scribbled, "Sorry. Call to discuss," on a leaf and tucked it under the Mercedes' windshield wiper. So happens, just then the other driver came back, so I got back out of my car to meet him and explain. Of course, I was instantly in tears, mascara streaming. That's not the surprising part yet (duh).

Here's the part. It was when he started in: "Are you ok? What's upsetting you so much? Work? Listen, I'm a litigator, and I know maybe better than anyone that all you have at the end of the day is your peace of mind. You can't stress out about work that much; it will bury you. This is nothing...it's a piece of metal..." (And he threw in, "You're a beautiful girl," for good measure, which was nice—or more to the point, it might have been why he was so forgiving.) (But really? All schmutzy and sweaty? Dang, thanks!)

So here was a guy, whose immaculate white Mercedes I just hit, counseling me and consoling me for 10 minutes. Being more gracious and generous with me than I could have ever predicted. Far more gracious, in fact, than I typically am with people who haven't just absentmindedly collided with my car. There is a lesson there, truly.

...Unless he calls me tomorrow and says, "Remember me? The litigator? You owe me a million dollars, you freakish stress case."

Fingers crossed.

5 comments:

Avril Love said...

That was a great story. And yes, you are a beautiful girl, even when you're all shmutzy and shvitzy. Some litigators really do have things in perspective and are just plain nice people.

Megan said...

Sometimes, people are kind.

natsmu said...

bri bri told me about your incredible luck. I miss you, too, baby cakes.

let's see each other soon...

mexi melt said...

that's so dubin.

call yourself lucky or blessed or whatever. there is definitely a lesson to be learned here.
i'm not here to spell it out, that is part of the learning process.
learn it live it. pay it forward.

Unknown said...

Once (sorry, your sister don't blog so I have to get my dubin fix here ...) this guy doored me on Ave A and then proceeded to have such a nervous breakdown about how he could have killed me (true) that some other passerby (a black man who was a spitting image of a guy I'd been dating just then, except that Scott was quite white, and actually I was staring at this guy and his Scott look-alike-ness and not watching the road, which is why I didn't noticed dude getting out of his car to begin with) had to stop and size me up and be all, "um, hun, you need to sit down and someone needs to get you some water." I had a gnarly bruise on my shoulder where I slammed into his door and it was summer. Not a season for sleeves.

I'm not going to say anything about phones plus driving ('kay, I just did) but I always wonder about people driving their fancy cars on the same streets as the rest of us. Streets aren't clean like Merceds E320s. There is a little dissonance, you know.

I'd put my money on he's going to call tomorrow and be all "remember me, the litigator? You want to get dinner? I'll drive."