St Patrick’s Day weekend was eventful. One of the events for me was I had a little fender bender. Thankfully, no one was hurt. It was a confusing intersection, I was trying to turn right, turns out I was in the wrong lane for that and I hit her as she was speeding past me on the right. She was going so fast the force straightened out my right turn as my front bumper scraped across her car, slightly denting the door.
We both pulled over and began the process of exchanging insurance & license information. Which was made infinitely easier with an iPhone! I just snapped the pictures! Who needs paper & pen! And I was able to forward them thru email my updated insurance cards which I’d never got around to printing out. Plus, her phone had died so before she did anything she asked to use my phone.
I said, “Sure” then watched in bemusement as she made about 5 phone calls, one to 911 to request police at the accident. Now I had no problem with the police being called. I hadn’t been drinking all night. But as much as I loved a man in a uniform, this was going to mean us standing around waiting for them to show up.
“You want to call the police?” I asked.
“Yes!” she insists and gives me a haughty look. “You always call the police, haven’t you been in an accident before!”
I’m trying not to laugh at her. Girlfriend, I think to myself, I’ve been driving longer than you’ve been alive! I’ve had 35 years of “incidents” between the ticket here and there, and an accident or two where it was my fault and where it was not.
But I let her do her little thing. Who am I to deprive someone of whatever makes them comfortable in a stressful situation. Besides, now I have a lot of interesting numbers in my phone should the “event” get ugly. But I don’t foresee that happening. Just me finding the “positive spin” on shit that happens. She’s shaking and upset. I’m blase and calm.
About 10 minutes into it, Sex God goes to the CVS Pharmacy and tries to use their bathroom. He HAS been drinking and you know you only rent beer. When he comes out I’m surrounded by about 10 people. Apparently she wasn’t calling them to just inform them she’d been in an accident. She was calling them to her.
The group converses in Spanish amongst themselves and I’m just standing around now, waiting for the cops to get here. She had her father & either brother or cousins or boyfriends, her aunt &/or mother and what looked like 3 girlfriends all crowded around her. By now she’s in tears, cuz she was “so scared!”
Again, I’m watching in amusement. Because really, folks, its a little fender bender. No one was hurt. Its just property damage and its why we have insurance. I remember her saying, “I just got it fixed too!” Makes you wonder if she’d recently got into another accident prior to this. Which might explain her being upset, but if its your second accident most people know the drill and are less freaked out about it.
If so, (and even if NOT so) this emotional reaction is pretty immature. Cuz shit happens in life ALL the time. If you lose it over a fender bender what are you going to do when the BIG shit hits the fan. With this, we know what to do. We celebrate no one was hurt. We report it and pay the damages. We take it as a lesson learned and roll on with life.
At least that’s what I’ve learned to do. But I watch this little Pampered Latina Princess, surrounding herself with a support system that is actually enabling her extended childhood. I glance at her car, an Acura TSX and wonder who paid for it? Sure its an ’05, but she’s also only 20! She said she just got off work, so I know its possible she’s making the payments herself, but I bet if she is, she’s still living at home.
And I can’t help comparing her to me in my 20’s. My own place as soon as I got a job. A receptionist. And bought my own car, paid my own insurance and went out dancing 3 nights a week. My car wasn’t fancy, just a Ford Escort. My apartment was a small studio with a pull out couch for a bed. I went to my favorite club before the cover began and only had 2 drinks a night to be able to afford my fun.
When trouble happened I may have called my support system, but mostly for advice on how to handle it. Or I just handled it on my own. And I certainly didn’t need 10 of them! And I have my parents to thank for that. They did not pamper me. They did not give me a new car, or a fancy Sweet Sixteen party, or a graduation party or dinner or anything. They scraped by to send me to college. They both worked so we were latch-key kids who did our own homework, made our own snacks and like every teen complained about the dinner made by my working, harried mother.
And they did it without extended family. (None near enough to help.) With 3 kids. The car I drove in high school was the old family station wagon and I had to share driving it with my brother. We lived practical, not privileged. And because of that my expectations on life are practical not privilege based. Strive for what you want cuz whether you “deserve” it or not has nothing to do with getting it. But earning it does. It has everything to do with getting it. And I teach that to my sons. I tell them, “Childhood should suck, so Adulthood is wonderful.” God forbid their peak happiness happens in the unreality of high school!
At one point in the Event Drama of Saturday night, her father (or grandfather, really I couldn’t tell!) comes over to me and says, “Such an emotional experience, you must be upset.”
I’m sure he means well but I find it ludicrous he thinks I’m a female in need of comforting. So I kinda snort out a grin and say, “I’m a year from 50, it takes more than a little fender bender to rattle me.”
Secretly I’m wondering if I’m Mayhem’s little bitch, out to test the personal adult strength of the Little Princess.
Oh and a side-note… I see this across the board in all ethnicity in one way or another. So its much less about a culture as it is about money. I swear if I ever won the lottery, I’d never tell my kids!