What happened?

This morning, shortly before 9:00, I was standing at the kitchen sink, doing dishes. I had to play catch up because I (once again) did not get the previous night's dinner dishes done. I was looking out the window and saw my neighbor across the street backing out in her new SUV. I then saw her drive back and forth past my house a few times. I started to wonder if there was something wrong with my house, or perhaps a body in the yard. She parked and came to the door.

I am of course still in my pajamas, as I always am at 9:00. Give me a break, I have five little children running around, the oldest of whom is seven. I normally get dressed around noon and yes, I'm OK with that.

The neighbor begins with small talk about how we never see each other and isn't it funny that it is raining in December and by the way, I sideswiped your van. She tells me the damage is minimal~ "A small dent and a bit of paint". She wants to write me a check instead of having me go through her insurance. I told her I would talk to dh and see what he had to say about it. I felt bad because she was very apologetic and obviously truly felt awful. And I like her, generally, even though I could do without the parties she has when her parents are out of state.

Neighbor left to run errands and I called dh. He had his phone off or something, so it took me a couple hours to get through. While I was waiting on him I went and looked at the van. Minimal damage, my ass. The whole panel in front of the gas tank was pushed in and a healthy amount of white paint from her SUV was left behind.

When dh called, he was extremely irritated about the whole thing, but I think felt better about the fact that Neighbor felt so bad. At any rate, he wanted me to call the police, so I did. I also called Neighbor so she would be aware that they were coming and wouldn't be taken by surprise.

The police showed up about a half an hour later. Two young guys. Much younger than me. When did that happen? How did all the cops get younger than me all the sudden? They told me in order to write an accident report, the damage has to be over $1,000. I stood there with them looking at the damage and remarked that yup, I believe that would be over $1,000. They then went to Neighbor's house and spoke to her at length. When they came back to my house, I was told that they were not going to write an accident report nor issue a citation because she was so terribly sorry. Gee, are you sure it's not because she's a 21 year old with long blond hair and big boobs? I'm suddenly feeling like the frumpy housewife. I wanted to tell them ~My boobs are bigger than hers, and I don't always look like this (probably I do), and I used to model (looong time ago), and.........oh crap, never mind. I might as well resign myself to being the frumpy housewife.

I remember being 21 and able to talk myself out of stuff I REALLY should have gotten in big huge trouble for. Now I know how it feels to be on the other end. Girl bats eyelashes and frumpy housewife has to fight with insurance. Oh well. I didn't really want to see her get in trouble, it's just that there's a huge dent in my van.