Hit and Run

I’m not sure when the rules changed, but apparently now if you hit another car with yours, you’re supposed to sneak away without doing anything. That’s right, hit and run. After all, why should the wrongdoer pay? The innocent victim is the one who should pay.  

       In the last six months, I’ve been a victim or bystander to three incidents. The first one happened at the gym while I was at Zumba. I came out and my rear bumper had a softball sized dent/crease in the left corner.

There wasn’t a note left under my windshield wiper. Nobody had left a message for me at the front desk of the gym. Whoever did it, had to work at it because I purposely park where there’s not a row of cars behind me.

       The second incident happened while I was at work. At this particular job, I eat lunch in my car. One day while I ate my sandwich, I heard someone honking. It sounded like it was coming from the next row of parked cars, but I couldn’t see anything.

       After lunch, I went back inside and got to work. My supervisor didn’t come in for another 20 minutes. That was unusual, so we all wondered what happened.

When she came in, she told us that she’d been eating in her Jeep SUV. She looked up and saw someone backing up into her. She honked her horn, but the car kept coming.

It hit her, and then pulled forward and parked. Nobody got out of the car. She finally got out of her Jeep and went up to the car.

It was, of course, a co-worker since that’s our designated area of the parking lot. My supervisor, who is pregnant, asked the hitter, who was already on crutches, what happened. The answer was that somehow she didn’t see the Jeep SUV, and didn’t hear the horn honking either.

It took a long time for her to admit that she’d even hit her. She also said that she thought there was already damage to my supervisor’s bumper, and added that she didn’t have any insurance. 

The latest parking lot hit and run happened yesterday. Johnny and I wanted to blow the pine needles off Sarah’s car and then park it in the garage. We needed to get some groceries, so we drove Sarah’s Audi to Fred Meyer’s which also got rid of the pine needles.

 We parked and went into the store. Twenty minutes later we came out, and found the corner of the rear bumper cracked and scraped. No note, nothing, but damage. We weren’t sticking out of the space. It was angled parking. It probably happened because someone across from our space backed out to go the wrong way down the row.

We haven’t even had the car for a month. I waited a day to call Sarah and break the bad news to her.

Accidents happen. I know that. These aren’t expensive new cars. Nobody was physically hurt. I’m sure that’s how the hitter justified forgiving himself and then leaving. But, it’s not up to him to forgive himself. It’s up to him to apologize and try to make it better.  

How can someone damage someone else’s property and drive away without a word. Why is it so hard for some people to take responsibility for their actions? If you can’t be responsible for the little things, how will you handle the big things?

When I was learning to drive, my father stressed that one of the most dangerous places to drive was the parking lot. Apparently, it’s also one of the worst places to park.

Laura Keolanui Stark is getting more exercise hiking into stores from the farthest spaces in parking lots. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

First Car Love

It had been delayed due to lack of funds, and the need for more driving experience, but the momentous day finally arrived---the day that Sarah got her first car!

       Our car shopping technique is not exactly typical. First, drive across the state with thousands of dollars in cash to look at a car that a graduate student who is returning to Korea is selling. Before you even get halfway there, listen to your daughter tell you that it’s too late, the graduate student sold the car to someone else.

Spend the rest of the weekend feeling nervous because you’ve got all that cash on you, and feeling thankful that you’re in Pullman, Washington where there aren’t many muggings.  

Then, two months later, go out to eat Mexican food. As you leave, crane your neck to check out what cars are for sale in the little car lot next door.  A gold car about the same size as my Camry caught Sarah’s eye. The wheels on my car kept rolling back to John’s office to drop him off.  He told us that if we wanted to, we should go back and look at that car.

        So Sarah and I did. The car was a 1999 Audi A4. It looked sleek and clean with a tan leather interior and black carpeting. It was an automatic, which was good because Sarah hasn’t learned how to drive a stick. We went inside, and asked how many miles it had on it: 113,000.

       That night, John and Johnny got online and looked up the Kelly blue book value. Johnny asked if it had all-wheel drive. We shrugged. We hadn’t asked about that. We didn’t even know that was a possibility. He asked us if it said “Quattro” on the trunk. More shrugs from us. Despite the limited information we gave him, it looked like they were asking below the blue book value.

John asked why we didn’t test drive it. We figured he and Johnny have to test drive it anyway, so why bother getting the salesman’s (and Sarah’s) hopes up?

        The online search shifted to Subarus because they’ve got 4-wheel drive, a very good option for snowy winters in Pullman, and driving through Snoqualmie Pass. Then it expanded to Hondas because that’s what Johnny drives, so he knows a lot about them.

        John called a few people, but the cars they were advertising had already sold.

        Schedules got busy. Johnny got sick. Our car shopping enthusiasm wore down, except for Sarah’s.

        The next week we passed by the Mexican restaurant car lot a few times while we were running errands, and Sarah always swiveled around to look for the Audi. Once she despaired, “It’s gone!”

Then she sat up taller in her seat, and got excited, “No, it’s still there! They just moved it.”

        I told her not to get her heart set on that car. We hadn’t driven it. It might have something wrong with it. Someone else might buy it before we did. She said she knew all that, but I could still hear it in her voice that she was getting attached.

         The weekend arrived and she started bugging us. Could we just go down there and test-drive it?

         John said he wanted to talk to someone about a Honda Accord. We went to see the Honda Accord, but while we were driving over, it had been sold. This was becoming an annoying trend.

         We went to see the Audi. They were closed! For the WHOLE weekend! “The boys” agreed to test-drive it on Monday. The place opened at 8:00. Sarah calmed down.

         I called home Monday on my lunch break. Sarah said that John and Johnny were waiting to test-drive it after Johnny got off of work. She was getting a haircut, and then meeting her friend Jerica, who was driving, to go shopping. That would keep her mind off the car.

         After work, I was less than a block away from home, when I spotted a gold Audi driving toward me! Johnny and his girlfriend Sarah were in it. I parked my car and climbed in. We went to Costco, and filled the gas tank up. Sarah didn’t know that we’d bought it yet.

          Johnny filled me in on the details: how the the car handled, where they drove it, what the salesman told them, and how the car lot is really a side business to their repair shop.

I drove the Audi home. The 4-wheel drive felt very different from my car’s front-wheel drive. It  really gripped the road. The interior looked and smelled new. The body was also in great shape. Sarah’s cello will easily fit in the trunk. The back seats can fold down, making the trunk even roomier to haul lots of her things back and forth to college.

My cell phone rang. It was Sarah, “Did they drive the car?”

I tried, unsuccessfully, to be cryptic, then blurted out the exciting news, “Yep, they drove it, bought it, and it’s parked in front of the house right now.” She was still squealing when I hung up.

1999 Audi A4

Before we owned one, whenever I’d see an Audi, I had a little joke that I’d always (insert eye roll) say, “They audi bought a BMW.”

Sarah has driven her car every day since we got it. She agrees with my new saying, “You audi drive an Audi.”

Laura Keolanui Stark is looking for the Audi’s owner’s manual. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.