So my car got rear-ended yesterday. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

I had just exited the freeway, and was waiting to turn right on a busy road. I edged forward to see the oncoming traffic… saw a truck coming… stopped… and whack! I got hit from behind by a lady in an Acura MDX SUV. For such a light impact there was a surprising amount of damage. It turns out the MDX has a nice wedge-shaped grille, set at the perfect height to dent my trunk and ride up on my bumper, tearing it loose.

Well, nobody was hurt, but the poor lady felt just awful about the whole thing. I can certainly sympathize with her, because I did the exact same thing not so long ago. The only difference was that my Sentra just left a scuff mark on my victim’s bumper. (The guy called me back the same day and said, “It’s barely even visible. Forget about it.”)

Anyway, here’s why this whole incident isn’t such a bad thing — for me, anyway. Three years ago, a man rear-ended my car, knocking the bumper loose. We exchanged numbers, and he said, “Look, let’s not get insurance involved. I’ll just pay you directly.” I figured, why not do the guy a favor… why mess up his insurance rates over such a little thing? “Sure,” I said stupidly. I didn’t even bother to collect his policy number just-in-case — how rude and untrusting that would have been of me! You can guess the rest of the story.

So… even though I managed to pop my bumper back in place, it still looks dinged, and I’ve been seething over this for the last three years. Finally, my now thoroughly-trashed bumper will be replaced, although not by the original person. Karma is fickle.

Now if only someone would kindly veer out of their lane and sideswipe me in the front (where, two years ago, someone scraped the hell out of my car in a parking lot and didn’t leave a note). Then we would be back in business.