Car crashes. It's what I do for a living. I don't crash them, but I listen to people tell me about them all day. Every day. Most of the calls that I receive are very uneventful--and I am grateful for that. I dread the day when I receive a call such as the one that my co-worker got a few days ago where the mother of a young man called in because he and his friends were sitting in his car and were shot by an unknown gunman. Thankfully, the "fatals" are not common.
My job requires me to be an amateur detective. "Why?" Well, because people lie. A lot. They lie about what happened to their cars, about where the accident occurred, and about how the accident happened. Sometimes they even set their own cars on fire or stage a phony theft. In my old age, I have become somewhat of a cynic. Although in my heart I want to believe that most people are good, I have days when I wonder if anyone owns-up to their mistakes anymore. So many people invent these cockamamie stories to try and weasel their way out of taking responsibility for an accident. They say things like: "I was driving home and a kid threw a pumpkin at my car. It ripped the front bumper off, smashed the head lights and bounced off the hood and landed on my back bumper, and cracked the bumper in half." When what really happened is this:
But, then there are days when I get to speak with lovely people like Mrs. Schwartz who was born in 1937 and was involved in a hit and run--she was the runner! The funny thing is, that she had no idea that she hit a thing---and I honestly believed her. She was brilliant, hilarious, humble and a bit confused. While she was telling me about how she went to the hardware store--and for the second time in a week was involved in an accident in the same parking lot, she laughed and simply stated "I'm not going there anymore." I imagine that she looks something like this:
The only way that she knew that she had hit another car was because the police showed up at her house (the car that she hit had damage to the entire passenger side and a witness gave her license plate to the police). As charming as she was, I sincerely hope that she turns in her license very soon before seriously hurting herself or someone else. But, it is people such as her who make my job really enjoyable--we chatted and laughed and at the end of our conversation, she thanked me for being so kind. She said: "only about 1% of people are as nice as you." Funny thing is, I didn't do anything special, I listened to what she had to say and told her not to be so hard on herself--that accidents happen and that's why we have insurance.
These are the moments that I live for. Moments in time when you meet someone and are able to in some way make their day a little bit better. Thank you, Mrs. Schwartz for making me laugh today.
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