I was headed home. I was waiting to turn left into my subdivision when I heard and felt a godawful bang and my car was pushed forward a few feet. The GPS on the dashboard was now in the passenger seat.

I put the car in park, turned on my hazard lights, and went to look at the damage. I’d thought about moving the car off the road but without knowing what kind of damage I had, I didn’t know if it was safe to do that.

I walked to the back of my car. There were no car bits on the road – always a good sign. I saw some deep scratches on the bumper and a dent on the trunk lid near the bumper.

The other driver (the “crasher”) and I (the “crashed”) exchanged information and then I went to move my car off the road.

My 2013 Honda Accord has a feature where every several months, it won’t start. I put my foot on the brake, like always, and push the start button, like always, but sometimes, instead of starting, it’ll just sit there, not starting, beeping at me but giving me no other information. Typically, 10 minutes later, I’ll try again and it’ll fire up like nothing happened. I mentioned this to the dealership and they said that they weren’t sure what that was about but it’d cost an awful lot to fix.

I mention this because when I tried to move my car off the road, it wouldn’t start.

While this was going on, cars were trying to get past us. As some of them passed, they’d honk their horns, presumably to say “excuse me but you really shouldn’t park your car in the middle of the road on a curve on a hill.” I considered answering “I completely agree and if my car would start, then I move my car as soon as I could but it won’t so I can’t.” This was too much to convey to a passing car. I considered that I did have time to wave my middle finger but that wouldn’t resolve matters either.

I made a couple of calls and tried to start the car a few minutes later. This time it worked. I moved my car off the road and went to wrap up the conversation with the “crasher”.

He thanked me for not going off on him (I’m paraphrasing). I was taken aback – I’d been thinking some dark thoughts about him but I guess he hadn’t read my mind. I said “we’ve all had a sh1tty year and a half and treating each other like sh1t won’t help that.”

See! I can be deep.