Car Karma

This morning, pre coffee (which may have been a key factor) I loaded the boys into the car to take them to nursery, reversed out of the drive and straight into a passing van.

The van driver (fortunately ever such a nice man) got out and inspected the impact. Not much damage done, a good old fashioned scrape down the side of the van and a right old prang to our bumper. We looked at each other and agreed it wasn't worth getting the police involved. This was a good thing, getting the police involved is a long and painful process that usually entails paying money somewhere. Van man called his boss who appeared shortly. We all looked. Stood around. Stroked our chins and sucked our teeth. The car repair place just up the road appeared. More standing around, more stroking of chins.

Then an offer. For friendship. 50 Euros and, as they say here, to je to (that is that).

Done. Handed over the cash and all off we all went on our merry way, me slightly feeling that I got off lightly.

Dave's take on the whole scenario was an example of how to receive the news that your wife has pranged the car.

He reminded me of the time when an American soldier in SFOR (the previous peace keeping force in Bosnia) driving that huge truck rolled back and hit the front of the Clio (our previous car when we were last living in Bosnia; its smallness indicating it was from the pre-children era). He gave us 100 Euro for the dent in the bonnet. We, not being in the least bit car proud, never got round to fixing it and the dent remained until we sold the car a couple of years later.

'So' said Dave 'the way I see it is that we are still 50 Euros up on the car karma front'.