Today I was just heading off to work when I got stuck in my local streets behind one of those big ass SUVs I love to bitch and moan about. I think it was an Escolade but really the point was it was crawling along the street, stopping, crawling, stopping and I couldn't get around it. Then it stopped stayed there and I figured he must be about to park so I backed up enough so I could see his driver side mirror clearly and waited. Then I noticed his reverse lights came on so I started to back up, realized there was someone coming up behind me so I laid on the horn.

SMACK

Oh well, there goes my third collision in that car in 13 years. One a hefty rear-ending (sufficient to give me whiplash for about a day) from a big Cadillac that didn't notice the light was red (or that I was waiting at the light...). I cut the guy a break - although my car was almost new the rear is actually very sturdy and all I had was some small imprints from his big wide front fender. It was actually pretty dumb because the whiplash could have ended up being much worse. The next collision was a front ender as I slid on a wet road into the back of stopped traffic on the notorious Hwy 17. Having a low front my car slid under the rear fender and it bent my hood somewhat and screwed up one headlight to point down too far. On reflection I really should have got that one fixed - it was the beginning of a steady decline in the exterior appearance, within a few more years it was already looking like a junker.

So enter the second front ender from my reversing friend in the SUV. Well after the guy behind me stopped honking (oh I was so tempted to reverse right into him...) the other guy parks and gets out. I get out and he just looks at my car. I look at my car. It took me a while before I noticed anything had changed. Basically he whacked my fender real hard (and dented it - big deal) on the right side and just about evened it up in the process since the first front ended had been on the left side. I think he dislodged another fog lamp but those hadn't worked in years and the other one was loose anyway. His monster seemed to have a smattering of my red paint over it but I couldn't really see that it was dented and he didn't even look.

Well I was about to say "Don't worry about it" when he thrusts two Franklins at me (you know $200) and says, "here I tell you what, have two hundred". So that was about it - Franklin diplomacy. I got more than I wanted, he got to keep his insurance clean and really my fender got straightened up.

Of course I really should have insisted on exchanging details - the $200 might have gone away then - later on I realized I didn't check my hood and sure enough its much harder to open now. However before it seemed to be barely closed, you could almost lift it up without the hood release being pulled. And I guess it was entirely possible he could have knocked my frame out of whack but it really didn't seem that hard - the fender took it and the first front end was much worse and had no effect. Ultimately if I'd gone the insurance route its anyone's give if I would ever have gotten any money since it would have been easy for them to argue the damage was already there since some of it has been there a looooong time and its hard to tell old and busted from new and busted. Plus they might have wanted to know just why my car is looking like such a wreck in the first place.

Next time I swear, I'm going to get a phone number - actually I did that once with my other car when it got rear-ended by a girl driving her mothers brand new Saturn. Made a real mess of her hood and I got $500 for scratches on my fender which no, I never took care of. Really, you couldn't see it for all the other scratches - that is what fenders are for. They should just put peel off layers of plastic coating on them or something.

Anyway, I feel like Ben Franklin just gave us some payback for that forged note we got passed the other day. Found money is all good as far as I'm concerned.

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