Only I Can Criticize Me!

I absolutely HATE making mistakes. As a child, if I were told off, I would recede into what my family called my "black mood" for hours at a time, unable to forgive myself or the messenger for calling attention to (gasp!) my faults. I have somewhat mellowed over the years but by a disappointingly small degree.

Last week I drove into the city (with all three children, during rush hour) to pick up my mother-in-law from the train station. Approaching a major intersection I found myself having to sneak between two city buses, the one on my right stationary and the one on my left moving. Realizing it was too narrow for me to comfortably squeeze through I stopped. Well! Cars behind me started sitting on their horns and the traffic cop at the intersection was blowing his whistle furiously and stamping his foot so STUPIDLY I drove through.

The next thing I knew there was a loud bang and my wing mirror flipped up (insert colourful language). So I pulled around the corner to inspect the damage and saw that happily the mirror was unscathed! I snapped it back into place and drove off to collect my mother-in-law.

The next day my husband came in from his run and asked me what the heck I had done to my car. What?!!! The entire right side was slightly scraped. At the time of the accident, in my relief over the state of the wing mirror,it didn't occur to me to check for other damage or file an accident report. Still, the damage wasn't so bad, just superficial. "It'll probably buff right out!" I assured my husband.

Long story short, the damage will cost almost $5000 to repair. Yes, that's three 0s. My husband sends me an email with the quote from Geico and quips, "Guess it WON'T just buff right out."

We've been married for 17 years. He REALLY should know better.