It's Monday morning, and if that's not bad enough, I managed to get into a car wreck while pulling out of my parking space in front of my house. I was driving my daughter to school, we were running late, she was in a foul mood, and I probably didn't look carefully enough before pulling out.
Whammo!
Anyone who's ever been in an accident knows how upsetting it is. I was upset and angry at myself. The lady in the other car (also driving her kid to school)was not to happy either. In fact, she was really pissed off. I should say at this point that everyone in both cars was fine. No injuries.
We waited and worried for a long time. I think she was scared that I was going to try to blame her for the accident. I was afraid of how expensive my fine was going to be, worrying about getting my kids to school today, wondering how much my insurance would go up, etc.
The officer finally arrived and we gave him all of our information, he inspected the damage, and then disappeared into his cruiser to fill out the report. As we waited for him, the other driver's teenage son noticed my Obama sign in the front yard, and then he pointed out my 'Women for Obama' sticker on my poor, damaged car. "Hey, you're Obama supporters!", he remarked with a grin. He nudged his mom, "hey, look!", and pointed at my sticker. She took a look at me and smiled. "All right!" she said with a smile. What followed was a long and truly delightful conversation about the election, the debates, our neighborhood (which we both share), the schools, then back to the election again.
This woman is a 54 year old Black lady who was born and raised in West Virginia. She had lived here in Richmond, VA for most of her adult life. She remarked on how amazing and truly unbelievable this election has been for her. Her son mentioned that he, being now 18, would be voting for the first time. I could tell he was really excited. Both of them talked about volunteering for the campaign and working to register new voters here in Virginia. That's when the officer returned to give us the police report. He looked at me and said, "I'm sorry to have to do this to you, but you're the one responsible for the accident here.". That was a bummer but not really unexpected.
The other driver looked at me with a smile, offered her hand and said, "I'm so sorry we couldn't have met under better circumstances." I smiled too, agreed with her, and shook her hand. Suddenly, a situation that could have left both of us feeling utterly horrible wasn't so bad anymore. I had met some neighbors that I didn't already know, we shared our excitement about the election and parted as allies rather than enemies.
Yeah, it sucks that my car is dented and that my insurance will go up, but I can't help but chuckle about how Obama even made a car wreck into a chance for two people to celebrate what they share rather than what divides them.