One more corner left

Our poor little car. You've already heard about the exhaust system that our driveway beats to heck on a daily basis. Someday I might tell you about the fight I had with the dealership in regards to our sunroof (that they broke during a rainy week). We make it haul anything from our canoe to Christmas trees. The trees are usually much bigger than the canoe, if you can believe it. I have a penchant for tall fluffy trees that won't fit in the front door - so believe it.

I am starting to worry about the disaster magnetism of our car. Back left bumper - run into by a moron in a boom truck while parked at work. Despite blue paint streaks that match the company truck (driven that day by the moron), he swears he did not do it. Weeks after this first love tap... front left wheel well - run into by the neighbor as he tried to scoot his car out of the space next to ours. He was very apologetic, but did send Papa Bear in alone to tell Mama Bear what had happened. Mama Bear was so mad, she didn't even say "What?!" or talk with her hands. I growled a lot, but thankfully it was unintelligible.

And then there's today. We're leaving the home-improvement-store-of-gross-and-greedy- warehouse-proportions. We watch a truck ("Oh geez! He's not gonna make it! Aagh! Our car!") pull away from a space he's unsuccesfully trying to back into. He misses our car by inches. We have enough time to sigh in relief before he's tries again, cutting it even wider ("Hey! Stop!"), pushing his back bumper into our right headlight. Crunch. Our little Honda bounces.

The driver gets out of the truck... and his wife hands him his cane. Not a good sign. From his speech and movement, it's obvious he is recovering from a stroke. Unable to feel anything but resentment that he's returned to driving, I sit in the car while Steve sorts out the details. The man's wife takes off like a shot, headed for another store (cheap-crap-designed-to- bring-the-US-economy-to-it's-knees). Not reassuring behavior. A lemon shortbread cookie of the Girl Scout variety soothes my temper a bit. Steve is wonderful and seems to ease the old man's anxieties just by being polite and calm. As he turns to leave, the man notices the car next to us, and points. A woman is getting out, and her door swings... it almost hits... As if acknowledging that that side has already been tagged twice, it clears. "I thought for sure they were gonna get you too" he says.

We have one more corner left, and wait for that last crunch to correct our "ding shui".