A little Friday night excitement.

Yesterday afternoon, Harper and I were sitting in the car at Blockbuster waiting for Brandon to pick up a movie when I felt the car suddenly lurch forward. Not particularly violently, but the kind of lurch that I was all, "Holy cow, did the car just randomly switch gears to "drive" and begin moving forward?" The lurch was appropriately combined with a non-violent "thump" that I noticed less than the lurch.

I swiftly turned to find the bumper of an enormous Benz right behind us. Her car had just butt bumped ours! "Ugh," I groaned.

So I waited for her to get out of her car, but she sat. And sat, blocking traffic in the parking lot for what seemed like forever. I waited. And waited. And then, just as I was reaching for the door handle to get out to make sure she hadn't like.. stroked out, she began to drive off!

I hurled myself out of the car and banged on her trunk to stop.

She rolled down her window and, annoyed, said, "Yes?"

"You hit my car."

"I did?"

"Yes. I was sitting in it. We lurched and I heard a crunch. My bumper is cracked."

"You lurched? Ha. Well I didn't feel it."

((starts to drive off, again, as I feverishly shuffle through my purse for a pen to write down her license plate number))

"Don't you leave!" I say in the meanest voice I could muster.  I may have thumped her trunk again for emphasis, because what was coming out of my mouth wasn't nearly as serious or scary as I wanted it to be.

Thankfully, Brandon came out. Guns blazing, typical Brandon style. I can only assume that after 11 years, he saw my face and knew he needed to yell.

She pulled out of traffic and talked to us from her car and started to drive off, again.

Brandon yelled that he'll call the police. She stopped. I sighed in relief. I just know Brandon would have chased her down. But what do you do once you catch an old lady?

She must have been afraid of the po-po, because she gave me her insurance card. And wanted mine. Haha.

She told me that she'd dispute the claim because she didn't feel it.

Brandon might've yelled a little more.

All the while, I'm snapping pictures like the paparazzi, but my hands were shaking so hard that I was taking one good picture for every 20. I hate, hate, hate confrontation. HATE.

With her entire insurance card copied on a piece of paper, she left

Dispute the claim? Really?

. . . Because you sat still for 15 seconds after you hit our car. Who does that?

. . . Because people who commit insurance fraud don't shake like a leaf trying to take pictures, form complete sentences or write down a license number (of which the first three numbers are illegible. smooth, Courtney).

. . . And they don't have a toddler in the back seat crying.

. . . And when your giant-ass Mercedes cracks my bumper and leaves black paint, it's not necessarily something you can deny.

Unless, of course, you're old as Methuselah and your giant-ass Mercedes cushions you so much that you probably wouldn't know it if you steamrolled a 1,000 year-old tree.

She probably didn't feel it. And I guess I'd be wary, too, until I saw the bumper, obviously.

I am SO done driving when I turn 70 years old.

It is the responsible thing to do. I promise to be brutally honest with myself and understand that I am a horrible driver by virtue of the fact that I can no longer see, hear or feel and that my reaction time is 1/5 of what it should be. In which case, I may occasionally risk driving to the mail box at the end of our driveway.

Claim is pending. An update will follow, assuming I'm not too crestfallen to document the experience.