It’s a debate going on in our house… and houses across the country...
and perhaps even around the world.
The
trust debate.
The
adults...
The
kids...
The
idea that in some way, because parents are hesitating in granting
freedoms and responsibilities, it can, naturally, only
be because they don’t trust the child.
Three
weeks ago Tigg and I were involved in a situation that only served
to prove our point… it really isn’t exclusively because of trust
in the child. In fact, in many ways it isn’t the child at all…
it’s everyone else.
We
had gone to visit a friend of ours, and we had parked our car
outside his office. During our visit, a woman came in from the
salon next door. She asked if anyone in here owned the car that
had just been hit.
Umm...
just been hit?
Yup.
One of their clients had been backing up her car to leave and
struck our car. Put a good size scratch in our rear bumper and
rubbed off alot of paint. One of the women in the salon saw it
happen, and tried to stop the woman when she just drove off. While
she couldn’t get her to stop, she had a more important piece of
information. She knew exactly who it was.
The
police arrived, wrote out a report, and took a statement.
A
pretty open and shut case.
But
it gets better…
When
we finally got in touch with the woman, she didn’t want to involve
our insurance companies. Nothing too strange there. The damage
to our car wasn’t excessive… and ended up being below a standard
deductible level. And with a police report and witness on our
side, we felt we were proceeding on fairly safe ground (and I’ll
spoil the suspense here… we were and it was paid for.)
The
thing is, Tigg and I had to drive the car to get an estimate.
We had to drop it off. And when we did drop it off, the clerk
for the repair shop asked if it might be possible for us to pick
up the check to pay for it… the woman wasn’t sure if she could
get it to them.
Yeah…
ok... I give up... when was her hitting our parked car going to
be a bit of an inconvenience for her instead of simply a repair
bill? She actually had the nerve to ask if this man would inquire
as to whether or not we might be willing to drive around the state
of Rhode Island as her private delivery service.
As
we collected information from talking to the repair shop and our
friend (who had been speaking with his neighbors in the salon),
it turned out that… of course… (1) The woman admitted to the police
officer that she knew she hit our car, didn’t think the damage
could possibly be major, and left the scene without reporting
it (told our friend that while trying to contact us after hearing
from the police). (2) She did have some other recent accidents
(her husband told the repair shop clerk this when dropping off
the check).
(Deep
breath)
A
car accident… with us legally parked and not even in the car…
involving a woman that knew she hit our car, left the scene without
reporting it, and didn’t want her insurance company involved.
Kids…
you can be in a car accident without even moving the car. If the
woman from the salon hadn’t come over to us, it is incredibly
likely that we would have been out a few hundred dollars to repair
the car. And it wasn’t our fault. It wasn’t our driving skills
(or even lack of skills) that had anything to do with any part
of the accident.
Crazy
things happen in this world. Crazy beyond paint scraped off a
bumper. Crazy to the level of incidents you can’t even consider
right now.
They
won’t be announced ahead of time.
They
won’t come with an invitation.
They
won’t be a result of… or be avoided by… any action or training
or experience you have.
Some
times… it really isn’t about you.