I could really just kick my parents in the caboose. It irks me
to no end that they had the absolute nerve to raise me with some
form of morals and principals. Watch it, those of you who are
raising kids, you may want to rethink that whole “instilling a
sense of morality” thing that seemed like such an enlightened
idea when you had this adorable innocent bundle with unlimited
potential wriggling in your arms.

Yes, my wonderful parents, who for years I watched as they came
forward to help others, were upstanding, forthright, and honest
citizens. Blah, blah, blah. I’d really like to just pop them
one for this “wonderful” example they set.

About three weeks ago I was on my way home from picking the kids
up at school and I realized that I needed to get gas. Instead of
picking the nearest gas station I decided to go to a different
one where the gas was 8 cents cheaper and they had a car wash.
Let’s face it, apparently I think 8 cents is going to save me a
chunk of change when I’m filling up a dirty Suburban, for that
I just about earned what happened next.

My son was pumping the gas and I was supervising when we noticed
this really nice, shiny, black truck pulling into the station.
As the truck pulled in out of nowhere another car runs right
into him sending car fragments flying all over the road. The
other car pulled into the parking lot nearby and the truck
pulled into the gas station where the driver leapt out and began
asking everyone there if they had seen the accident.

This was one of those times that I really wish I had the gift
of dishonesty instead of this wretched curse of honesty. I’m
not saying I never lie, I’m just saying that 99% of the time
I don’t like to and am incapable of doing so on the spur of
the moment. So, of course, I said, “yes, I saw what happened.”

The guy looked so relieved that when he asked me to stay to
talk to the police I felt compelled to. Plus he was cute and
since his truck had practically no damage at all and he
mentioned he was driving home from work (he had a JOB!), I
thought I might want to see if he was single to hook him up with
my sister. That’s me, always trying to help someone out and this
looked like it was a two-for-one deal. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

So I stay and give a report to the officer who thanks me for my
time and tells me that the insurance companies will be
contacting me. Sure enough about a week ago I get a rather thick
envelope from an insurance company.

I thought doing your own taxes was complicated. Looking it over
I realized that not only did they have a very extensive
questionaire but there was also a lovely little intersection
diagram and they expected me to draw in a picture of the
accident using their indicated symbols for all the parties
involved. Three weeks later, mind you.

I’ve got a 15-month old who still doesn’t sleep through the
night. I can guarantee you that at least 75% of the details
from that accident were permanently erased from my mind as
soon as the officer wrote them down on that yellow piece of
paper that duplicated it onto who knows HOW many carbon
copies.

I’m functioning on a limited amount of sleep, I have three
kids, pretty much anything that gets written down either by
me or someone I’m dictating it to is guaranteed to be removed
from my brain the next time I blink. My mind is stingy with
it’s available memory and if it is on paper somewhere it
doesn’t need to be taking up space in my head.

I’m trying to figure out why the statement the officer took
isn’t good enough? I mean, I signed it and everything. Let’s
not forget that I wasn’t involved in the accident, don’t these
insurance companies realize that if people aren’t involved they
don’t want to fill out a multiple page questionaire AND draw
a stupid picture too? I’ve got a picture I could draw, it’s a
stick figure of my hand…

Then today another insurance company calls. Apparently this is
the company for the other party involved in the accident. At
least this lady only left a message asking me to call back
to “discuss” the accident. She left a claim number and a 4 digit
extension, she’s lucky I had a pen handy.

The note I wrote for myself is now sitting on top of the other
company’s questionaire. Don’t think I don’t want to kick myself
in the rear every time I look at that thing lying there, mocking
me…

“Oh you just HAD to be HONEST… you just HAD to do the RIGHT
thing… well, look where THAT got you, Sweetpea.”

I call myself sweetpea when I am scolding myself for doing
something stupid.

Needless to say their little questionaire has sat on my
desk for over a week now and that isn’t counting the time it
spent in the “junk mail” pile because it looked like one of
“those” letters from an insurance company.

Perhaps I’ll find some sarcastic cartoon online making fun
of insurance companies and use one of my kids’ gluesticks to
stick it to their little diagram.

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