A Pesky Little Bump.

Some bloke went into the back of me the other day. I was waiting at lights, on my way to an important appointment (well, quite important, it is only me after all) when the driver of the vehicle behind me clearly decide that he wanted his front number plate to kiss my back number plate. With tongues. It was a shock to the system (well, again, quite a shock: this wasn’t the opening of a Mad Max movie) and I think my first thoughts and first words neatly wound together into a firm and clear: “oh, for fucks sake”. I knew that swearing wouldn’t help, but then it didn’t do much harm either. The health and safety rules say that when you get bumped on the road you’re supposed to turn your engine off and put your hazard lights on and check the road for other drivers and pedestrians and then, when you are absolutely sure that no-one else is in danger you are free to calmly approach the third party driver (aka, the clumsy, boss-eyed twat) to politely ask what the fuck they think they’re doing. Fortunately, my passenger on this occasion ignored all that and reacted with award-winning, lightning precision, jumped out of the car and deftly employed a range of working class vocabulary to establish some basic facts that might help in our subsequent enquiries.

I used my keen powers of observation to calculate that the chap behind me was a painter/decorator; because he was covered in paint and was driving a painter/decorator’s van. At almost exactly the same time it dawned on me that I was wearing a pale blue suit with a pink shirt, tie and pocket square and therefore looked like the sort of person Kevin Spacey might be interested in doing some role play exercises with and, also therefore, the sort of person that your average painter/decorator driving a painter/decorator’s van would have only a limited time for in the best of circumstances. My tie came off immediately (in a doomed attempt to look hard, but which instead resulted in me looking like someone who might have a decent chance of winning the Eurovision Song Contest). Alas, the damage was already done and my self-conscious levels had shot through the roof and were hurtling uncontrollably towards Saturn. And all this on the hottest afternoon of the year so far – what timing.

Fortunately my new painter/decorator nemesis was clearly in the wrong when it came to the incident at hand, so although I didn’t trust him a great deal less than I trust myself I was pleased that he turned in after me onto a garage forecourt so we could go through the motions. It has been a very, very long time since I was last in a traffic accident (mainly because I am a highly skilled, patient and observant driver who follows the highway code to the letter – that’s just in case any off duty members of the traffic police force are reading this) so I couldn’t reliably remember what the motions were but, as is the way of things theses days, everyone seemed to have their phones out and were taking a breath-taking quantity of photos from all sorts of angles, most of them rendered redundant under the glare of something called the sun, which lives in the sky and hasn’t been since last September. I could see that my car had taken a significant enough bump on the bum to make it need repairing and since I don’t even fully own my car yet it did make me rather miffed that I was going to have to fart around getting it all sorted; as well as probably turn up late to that quite important appointment that I was now worrying about even more than I had been before.

On the tick list of essential particulars one must gather in such circumstances as these I had managed to secure a phone number and registration plate and then passed Hertfordshire’s answer to Jackson Pollock an envelope and a pen so he could write down his email address. Sadly, he was forced to give up after a few seconds since he was unable to work my fiendishly complicated fountain pen (he must have had a few laughs in the pub later, recounting the ludicrous twit he had just dealt with on the way home from work) and so he dictated his address to me instead and then I walked back to my car having, because I can be unfailingly polite when I want to be and also prone to fear all men driving vans, wished him a good afternoon and called him “mate”. At no point did he ask for my details and nor did I volunteer them, something that only later confirmed this was very much a one way blame game. Which does make things that little bit easier.

I’d like to be able to make your day and tell you that my new “mate” somehow managed to pass me entirely false information and that as soon as I finish this post I’ll be outside trying to straighten out the unsightly bumps on the backside of my car myself, with a toffee hammer, but thankfully for me his identity all checked out and the cogs of justice have been relatively smoothly set in motion. Only a few months ago I ditched my old insurance company because they had been taking the piss for years and I had been too shy (read: stupid) to do anything about it, but I’m glad I still signed up for all the bells and whistles with my new company because it has meant that everything that helps this sort of situation go well has happened (whereas if you decide to pay for the cheap seats you are subjected to daft restrictions such as only qualifying for a courtesy car if you were born on Anglesey and can prove that you regularly attend Quaker meetings) and in the not too distant future my car will be nice and shiny and Botoxed and mended, all out of someone else’s pocket. Shame it’s such a faff though, and shame that bloke was probably looking at his phone when he went into the back of me. I suppose he could have been daydreaming about what shade of distressed umber to paint some feature wall somewhere, but given he couldn’t adequately operate a pen that seems unlikely. Frankly, I would rather the whole thing had never happened, but then sometimes certain events just don’t offer you a choice; you just have to lump the bump and get on with the next next thing.

G B Burton. 12.05.2024