Scratches and Dings

Confession: I cut coupons.

Every Sunday morning, I get up at 8:00. Not on purpose, it's just what time my "clock" goes off. I make coffee, go outside to get my Sunday Boston Globe, head to my living room couch, and read. The very last newspaper activity is the cutting of the coupons. Afterwards, I file the them in a coupon organizer.

I was raised to cut coupons. Every Sunday morning my mother and I would sit at the kitchen table and I would watch as my mother cut coupons while making a shopping list. Then my father would take me food shopping with him, which I loved to do, because I knew I would get to have my own box of animal crackers that I would eat while sitting in the shopping cart.

I wasn't home Sunday morning to read the paper and so I wasn't able to read and cut until Wednesday, but didn't have a chance to put them in my organizer. Yesterday I only worked a half a day and so I grabbed the stack of coupons and put them in the passenger seat with the plan to file them when I got to the supermarket. Which is what I did.

While sitting in the car going through coupons, I notice out of the corner of my eye that the owners of the car next to me have started to put their groceries from the cart to their minivan. A moment later I heard it. Thud.

I get out of my car and walk over to the other side. "I think you just hit my car." Big gruff man looks at me. "Are you sure?" "Yeah, I just heard it." I look down to see a scratch and I point it out to him. "How do you know it was from me?" I start to get annoyed because the tone that he has taken is that which an adult uses with a 4 year old who just asked why the grass is green.

I tell him that if he opens his door again, we'll be able to see that the corner of his door will meet the point of the scratch. Sure enough, he opens the door and it is a perfect match. He puts his face real close as if it's not that obvious. As if he's looking for just a centimeter of area where the door does not meet the scratch so that he could say, "Ha!" I really want to take my hand and push his head into the door, but realize that would cause more damage. It was a tempting thought, though.

"Whaddaya want me to do?" he says. I just look at him and think. Is it worth the frustration? Ken has a kit to buff a scratch out, so I'm not worried about that, but I don't want him to walk away so easy, so I just continue to look at him, hoping my eyes would pierce his soul and he would apologize profusely and hand over the ice cream cake I notice in one of the bags.

"Do you want me to buff it out?"

My eyebrows raise. Could my gaze really have that much effect to turn evil into good?

"Do you have anything with you to use?" I sound hopeful.

He turns and looks in his car.

"How bout an onion. Would an onion work?"

Jackass.

At this point I am too tired to deal with him anymore. I start to say something again and then I see him open his wallet and hand me some money.

"Here. Get a car wash and maybe it'll wash off." He gets into his car and drives away. I look at my hand and there are 3 crumpled one dollar bills.

In hindsight, I wish I argued more with him, just because of his attitude. Granted the scratch was minor and it isn't noticeable unless you're next to the car. but it's the principle. It's taught me to always get the license plate number, even if I won't act on it. If I had it now, I'd consider reporting him for being a Jackass.