It happened three weeks ago, in Burien. My friend and I were on our way to a wine tasting party in nearby Normandy Park, and I’d just pulled off the highway and onto the town’s main road. I approached a stoplight turning red and quickly hit the brakes. My car came to a rest just beyond the stop line, and a second later I heard something screeching behind me. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw an old pickup truck skidding toward me. “Oh …” a cussword escaped my lips as the pickup bashed my bumper.
I was in the left of two lanes, and put on my blinker to cross in front of the other stopped cars and into the QFC parking lot next to us. I expected the pickup to follow me so we could exchange insurance information, but as the light turned green the truck took off straight down the road. I looked over my shoulder in disbelief and let out a stream of words I don’t care to repeat. My friend’s eyes widened as she feared our evening had been ruined and my mood irretrievably altered for the worse. We hopped out to assess the damage. The truck hadn’t been going very fast when it hit us, but the sound of the crash had me worried that I’d find a crumpled bumper.
To my relief, my trusty Honda proved to be resilient. The only damage was two barely noticeable indents where the bolts holding the truck’s license plate had contacted my plastic bumper. I began to cool down, to my friend’s relief. The night could go on without cursing or worries of damage and insurance premiums. And we now had an anecdote for our friends at the party.
Later the next day, my friend and I were talking to the party’s host and I said, “Did I ever tell you about the time I was the victim of a hit and run?”
“No,” she responded
I said, “It happened just a few miles from here, in fact. And pretty recently.”
Our host said that was terrible, and I started in on the story.
“So last night …” I said, and my friend and I laughed as a look of realization spread across our host’s face.
Riveting tale, sibling.
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