The problem with steel bumpers . . .

I was waiting for a 5:00 appointment yesterday. My client was running late, so I stepped out the front door of the office to get a little fresh air as I waited. When I stepped out of the door a young woman pointed at my truck parked across the street and said, "Is that your truck?" I told her it was. She said, "I just hit it with my car." My truck was parked in a diagonal space right where I left it, and her car was parked beside it. The vehicles were not touching. I was confused.
As I walked toward her and the vehicles I asked her where she hit it. She pointed to the back bumper of my '95 Silverado and said, "Right there on the corner. I've already called the police to do a report."
I looked at the bumper and a saw little sliver of rubber about the size of a toothpick , torn away. I said, "Is that all it did? Look at this truck." The front bumper of my truck is still twisted from an accident a few years ago. The paint is splotchy. Old firewood, a selection of boots and shoes, and a mildewed beach towel were in the back. Neither door will open from the inside. I told her I didn't think a police report was necessary. If that's all that happened, it was a good day in the life of my truck. I don't drive the truck much anymore. My car uses about half as much gas, and the doors open from the inside. But yesterday, as I was hoppiing into my car to get to court right on time, I turned the ignition key in the car and nothing happened. The battey was dead. So after airing up the flat tire on the truck, I drove it to work.

She said, "Go to the other side of my car and take a look." The right front quarter panel of her car was creased from the headlight to the door seam. "Good grief,' I said. "How did you do that?" She told me she turned left at the light, turned a little too wide, and caught the very edge of my truck's bumper on the right side of her car. She needed a police report to turn in for her insurance.

Ironically the same young woman had been helping me all day at the bank. I was trying to set up a trust checking account for a client, and she had gone out of her way to help me. I began feeling guilty for driving my truck. I'm sure my car would have caused much less damage.

I thought to myself, that's silly. I parked completely in the parking space, my truck was not moving, and I was no where around when the accident occurred. .

But later I was still thinking about it. My truck is a big, heavy, strong vehicle. The bumpers are bascially steel covered with chrome. There's nothing wrong with that.

The young woman was driving a mid-compact. The bumpers were plastic. If she hit anything, her car was going to be damaged.

We both chose our vehicles. So why shcould I worry about it at all?

So what if I've got a bigger, stronger vehicle. I parked it within the law. I was no where around it. Why should I worry at all about what happens to someone who drives a smaller, more fragile car?

There are a lot of things that may not be our fault. But some of us are blessed to travel this life in the big strong vehicles with the strong bumpers, while others travel in vehicles that can't take much of a lick.

Some of us live in a country where the poorest among us would be middle class in much of hte world. Some of us were born into a race that has never suffered slavery, and the generations of oppression and inequality that follows. Some of us have lived lives free of physical or sexual abuse, as a child or as an adult. Some of us never suffered depression or mental illness.

Some of us have done nothng wrong. But even so, people that are more fragile can suffer damage just by running in the same race with us. So watch those elbows and stay in your lane. At the very least maybe we can give those more fragile a safe place to run this race.
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