So my little car accident situation has been completely resolved, to my great relief. It turns out that our car insurance policy has a $0 deductible (I did not know such policies existed), and that because this is my first at-fault accident, and the total damages are less than $1000, all is forgiven and there will be no change to our insurance rates. So basically, I can just forget about everything and it will all go away. We even have about $350 left in the accident budget to get the van officially repaired, instead of just touched up by ourselves, if we want. So all good.

One thing that I did not tell Sir Monkeypants about this accident is that I kind of had a chance to walk away from it at the start. When our cars first rubbed together, we got out to have a look and I said that I guessed we should trade information. However, it was at one of the busiest corners in all of Ottawa at a busy time of day, and there were probably a hundred cars being held up by what was really a very minor accident. I had pulled forward a bit so there was a car’s space of room between us and people were trying to nudge through, which made it dangerous for us to go back and forth between our cars, and everyone around us was honking and giving us dirty looks and in general doing everything in their power to up my tension level by like, a thousand percent. And to top it all off, neither of us could find a pen.

So what happened was, the other guy, SUVGuy, gave me his business card and told me to call him. Then he drove away.

I’m pretty sure that after he left he totally thought he would never hear from me again. I’m sure he thought he’d have to pay for the repair himself, or claim it on his insurance and have to absorb that cost instead. He didn’t know my name or where I lived or anything about me, there was no police report or anything, and I easily could have just walked away and pretended like nothing ever happened. I could have told Sir Monkeypants that the scratches on the van were from the Superstore parking lot (although, I did have three little witnesses in the back seat, two of whom can’t seem to keep their mouths shut when it comes to being on the lam, so I probably wouldn’t have gotten away with that part).

I have to admit, the thought did cross my mind to just act like nothing happened, to never call the guy, to let it just go. But in the end, I couldn’t do it, so I emailed him and gave him my name and phone number, and the rest is history.

I talked on the phone with SUVGuy at least four or five times in the past few days and every time he made it a point of saying how amazed he was that I had contacted him. I think I totally restored his faith in humanity. On every phone call he told me that I was one of the nicest people he’d ever met. I think he was pretty impressed that I didn’t argue with him or try to make it into his fault or anything like that. I just told the insurance companies what had happened and we all agreed it was my fault and it was all taken care of easily.

And SUVGuy thinks I am totally rocking awesome. In fact on our last phone call he mentioned having me and the TurtleHeads over for a BBQ, because I seem like such a sweet lady. I’m still feeling like a total moron about the accident in the first place so I think I don’t really need to be socializing with the guy. But I do think if I had shown the slightest bit of interest, I’d be dining at his house on the weekend.

So in the end I kind of came away with a good feeling about it. It’s really nice to hear — several times over — that you are a great, kind, super nice person. Really I could listen to that kind of stuff all day long and twice on Sunday.

Almost makes it worthwhile to have hit someone! Oh, everybody calm down. I said ALMOST.