Do you want me involved?

Before Madison came home we had an incident. I'm not sure why I started off with that sentence, but I think that is how I tell time now; After Madison Left and Before Madison Came Back. Either way, there was an incident, and it involved Darcy. Darcy is my independent kid. She doesn't need much pushing or pulling. She knows what has to be done, what she has to do to get where she needs or wants to go, and she, for the most part, handles it and completes her tasks. Since she started driving she has become even more independent, and if she had an endless source of money we might never even see her.

She is very involved. She leaves the house at 6:30 during the weekdays and she comes home just in time for dinner. She has multiple activities that she participates in, she volunteers, she works when she can scramble for jobs, and she does her school work which lately has involved AP testing. Every day when she heads off to school I make her take me through her expectations for the day so that I can at least feel that I know where she is at certain times. On the weekends the kid is usually gone. This past month she has had AP studying with teachers and groups of students early on Saturdays before heading off to her other various activities. Occasionally, she returns home between said activities, and it was during one of those times that the incident occurred.

It was the weekend of rehearsals for her school play and as she was the stage manager she was heavily involved. She had returned from her study group, left again to grab a Starbucks, had come back home to study, and had just finished getting ready for rehearsals and was on her way to that. I was worn out from all of her popping in and out of the house, coming and going. I figured I had a reprieve for a few hours as she kissed me good-bye and headed out once again. Before I knew it she had popped back in again.

Darcy: "I just hit somebody. Don't freak out. I just backed into them, but the back of my car is bad."

Don't freak out? What? Of course, I did just that.

Me: "What? OH DARCY. OMG! What?"

There was more, but you get the drift. I ranted and raved while I got up, letting a few choice words slip past my lips, and I peered outside. Her car, the one that use to belong to her grandmother, was still in the middle of the road. The back of the car looked like it was attached to the truck parked across the street. Immediately, I had a flashback to earlier that day when I had watched the driver of that very truck park in that very spot.

Since the sales of houses in our neighborhood have happened due to deaths, we have had new neighbors, and all of them, let me repeat that, ALL OF THEM, have been doing construction on their new houses. Currently, the next-door neighbor and the neighbor katty-corner to me across the street are competing in what I call "construction offs" which means they see who can be the loudest in sawing, hammering, and banging. Various contractors wander the yards shouting. Appliances are delivered. Companies appear to fix or put in all sorts of different things. All of them have vehicles, and all of those vehicles are parked in driveways and in our streets.

I had been emptying my dishwasher that afternoon when the white truck pulled up in front of my neighbor's yard. My neighbor across the street has a circular driveway with a small patch of plants in the middle. One end of her driveway sits off-center across from our driveway. Parking in front of the little plant patch between the entrances to her driveway usually means that an obstacle is in our way when we back out of our driveway. It is a terrible spot to park, and I thought that when I watched the guy park there. Actually, my first thought was "who the hell is this guy" because I am the neighborhood watchdog when it comes to my view from my kitchen window. I can see directly across the street and katty-corner in both directions to view three houses, two of which I know the neighbors well, and the third the current construction house. I even muttered aloud.

Me: "Who the hell is that? Oh, dear lord, it is a worker. What kind of worker bee shows up at this time of the day on a Saturday? Why are you parking there, buddy? The house you want to work at is behind you. Why must you park in my way?"

I watched the guy, who turned out to be the cable man, get out of his truck, make his way to the back and dig out some tools. He left the tailgate down, and I watched as he turned around and walked back to the house katty-corner to us. They had three cars parked in their driveway and two trucks parked in the street in front of their house. The whole thing annoyed me.
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That is what I flashbacked to when I stood there looking at the current scene; Darcy's car backed up in the middle of the street attached to the white truck's tailgate. I threw my arms into the air, told her to get her car out of the road and to find the owner of the truck, and I went off to put on shoes. Darcy likes to tell people that I did not help her in any way, and this is true. I had no shoes on and had to use the bathroom. Those were my first priorities. I like to think of it as my calming down period. She made it seem like there was considerable damage, and since I did not go out immediately, I took her word for it.

Darcy went to my neighbor directly across the street thinking the owner of the truck was there. He sent her next door. By the time I reappeared with an empty bladder and shoes on my feet, Darcy's car was back in our driveway and she and the gentleman were standing by his truck bed. I headed out the door to join them, stopping first to get a glimpse of our car.

Cable Guy: "Hey. Yeah. Terrible thing. I feel really bad for her. Man. She got the brunt of it. Just terrible luck."

I kept my mouth shut. It was hard. It usually is for me, but what I wanted to snap back was something along the lines of what a moron he was for parking there in the first place. Instead, I walked across the street and stood next to Darcy and looked down at his tailgate. She had backed into the corner of the down tailgate. Had the thing not been down in the first place Darcy would not have hit anything. She saw the truck as she backed up, but she didn't see the tailgate as her car sits higher than the truck's tailgate. Had it been closed she would have stopped, turned her wheel, and continued her turn. Instead, the corner of his tailgate went right through Darcy's hatchback.

See it? Yep, it is difficult, and frankly, not sure that it was caused by my kid, but what could we do? In hindsight, she probably could have driven off and no one would have been the wiser, but she did the right thing instead. The cable guy was writing down Darcy's insurance information, and I told him we needed his. I photographed the damage, trying not to roll my eyes at his "damage" that he was making such a fuss over.

Me: "And your name is?"

Cable Guy: "John."

That was it. John. I refrained from saying, "Smith? Jones?" which immediately sprung into my mind because the next thing out of his mind had me standing incredulous, my mouth hanging open.

Cable Guy: "I'm going to have to call the police."

Me: "What? Are you serious?"

Cable Guy: "Afraid so. I've got to call the police. This is a company vehicle."

Okay, he was doing the right thing too, but really? The police? For that? Listen, I hit the mail truck in this very exact spot, and let me tell you, if all I had done was that kind of damage the mail lady and I would have shaken hands, got back into our vehicles and gone on our merry way. The mail truck, like this cable truck, was beat up and one more dent or turned up corner wasn't going to jump out at any company executive. (Unfortunately, for me, I did more damage to the mail truck than Darcy did to the cable truck.)

Me: "Well, you can call the police all you want, but this is sheriff territory and you will need to call...." I gave him the number acting like a big shot.

Cable Guy: "What? No, I'll call the police."

Me: "You're in the county. This isn't the city. We have the sheriff."

Cable Guy: "Are you sure?"

Me: "I'm sure. I live here."

About that time up drove my husband. He too refrained from rolling his eyes when he saw the damage to the truck. He did look at me with one of those WTF looks. I shrugged. He told me to take Darcy to her rehearsal. He was very calm. We left him to it. Darcy started sobbing immediately when we drove off, and so I told her it was no big deal. I did the mommy bit telling her it could have been worse, everyone has these moments, reminded her of me hitting the poor mail lady's truck, glad it wasn't serious, no one was hurt, blah, blah, blah. I dropped her off into the arms of her cast and drove back to the scene.

No sooner did I enter our house then up drove a highway patrol car. He parked in front of our driveway and we went out to meet him. He was very muscular, wore shades that hid his eyes, and his demeanor was that of a no-nonsense guy. He looked at Darcy's car, gathered what had transpired, and walked down to view the truck bed. The cable guy pulled up the tailgate and pointed out something on the underside. The deputy looked at Tom, and I guarantee behind those shades his eyes were rolling. He stared at the cable guy.

Cable Guy: "Yeah. It's terrible. I feel bad. Her car took the brunt of it."

Highway Patrol: "And you want me involved?"

Cable Guy: "Yeah, I had to call you. It's a company vehicle. I wish I didn't have to, but I do."

HP: "Because if you want me involved then I'll have to issue two citations; one to her and one to you."

CG: "What? Me?"

HP: "It's illegal to park a company vehicle on a residential street in the county."

CG: "I don't believe that. That's not true. Of course, I can park here?"

HP: "You can't park here. Those trucks behind me can't park here. The boat up there in the street can't park here.  All of them should be issued citations too."

CG: "I don't believe that. I don't think you're right."

HP: (silence)

CG: "So I have to take time off of work to go to court to argue that I know I can park on the street?"

HP: "You're in the county. You can park these trucks in the city all you want, but not in the county in a residential neighborhood. If you want to fight that, fight it, but I just came from the court where a woman lost that fight. Do you want me involved in this or not?"

CG: "You could have told me that when I called."

HP: "Do you want me involved or not?"

CG: "Thanks, but we got this."

Through the whole exchange, I stared incredulously at the cable guy. Arguing with a deputy? I'm telling you right now, that is one thing I was taught and will never do; argue with a deputy. It's one of the reasons why I recently didn't get picked for jury duty because I said that very thing.

I'm not saying don't question authority, but these guys put their lives on the line and keep their hands on a gun strapped to their waist. I'll question authority after the fact and after the deputy has gone. Telling him he was wrong about the law? Not something I would have done.

The deputy got back in his decked out car and slowly drove off. Tom and the cable guy became good friends chatting up a storm after he left. I went into my house. I vaguely remember reading about company trucks not being able to park in residential neighborhoods in the paper recently. I remember because I said out loud, "that is ridiculous and not going to happen" when I read it. That will teach me.

The incident died there. Everyone tried to do the right thing and in the end, the right decision was made, I think. The beat-up cable truck isn't going to suffer from the damage. Darcy isn't suffering from her damage. I cringe when I look at the back of her car, but I'm just happy that was all it was because teens driving? That's a whole other ball of wax for me. Tom repaired the damage for $20, and while it isn't pretty there isn't a hole anymore. I'm going to slap a Steelers sticker over the whole thing and beauty it up some.