People Are Jerks

You don't even really notice it...

I left my car in a Costco parking lot for about ten minutes the other day and came back to a gaping dent in the bumper. At first I thought I went to the wrong car, because my little silver hatchback can be easily confused with any other of the half dozen hatchback style cars out there right now... but no, the spot was mine, that was my license plat, that's my car with the fat dent.

My heart just sank. I bought this car in December brand new, not a scratch on it. Nine months to the day later and someone hits it, hard, and just drives off leaving me with an unmissable hole in my car. And as you can see, I'm not exaggerating the size of this dent. Sure it's in the bumper, probably the cheapest part to replace, and sure the bumper is meant to take a beating like that, but it's still going to cost me a grand to replace, money I just don't have right now and won't have for another month or two. Which means no new bed for my birthday, second year in a row, because something else came up. 

Because it happened in a Costco parking lot (which also had an IKEA and a Lowe's), and the size of the dent makes me think it was someone with an SUV or truck, I would find it very hard to believe that this person did not have the means to pay for the damage they caused. They probably didn't even look before driving away, just hit and run and hope no one saw or whoever did see won't say anything (which is exactly what happened in a rather busy Costco parking lot on a holiday weekend afternoon), but if they had looked they'd have seen a very new, very economy car with a dent that will most certainly not be missed. 

Earlier that morning I took my car in for an oil change, tire rotation and wash at the dealership, taking care of it after a grueling road trip of over 2,000 miles. And the universe repaid my little car with a rear-ending. It's a day later and I'm still fuming mad over it (if that's not coming through already). My insurance deductible is $1,000 so I'll be footing this bill myself, unless it happens to cost more than that, which I kind of doubt. 

Oh yeah, and they scratched the fuck out of it, too. Real nice.

I suppose I am lucky that my car wasn't hit hard enough to push it into the truck my car was facing in its parking spot, and this asshat didn't cause more damage. And I suppose I'm somewhat lucky that I wasn't in the car to experience whiplash and have neck or back pain for days or weeks, still without insurance, and still not be able to catch who did it. But those are very small condolences.

In my anger and frustration at whoever was so irresponsible to put that big of a dent in a car without leaving a note, I made a post to Reddit asking people to please be responsible when driving; if you're on the phone or not paying attention or speeding or whatever, just take responsibility for when you fuck up and don't leave someone else to clean up your mistake. The response I got was not supportive (though maybe that's my fault for expecting support from the internet)... one person even said they wouldn't claim responsibility because the person would just say the damage was worse than it was and try to fuck him over. So, whoever this is would just drive around, hit other cars, and leave them to deal with it, because he has a life savings that he worked hard for and he's not going to let anyone take it from him. It'd be nice if I had a savings to take from to pay for this... but now I'll just have more debt instead. I'm not letting this dented bumper sit until I have the money - I promised I'd take better care of this car and I will. It's not my fault I have this new expense considering I wasn't even in the car when it happened, but now it's my responsibility to keep my new car looking and running the best it can.

Thanks, society. I was just starting to say nice things about you, too.