9

It's way too late to blog, but I said I'd tell this story today so here we go.

Back in 1992 I was involved in a minor fender-bender that occurred in the parking lot of where M.E. Moses (a small general store) used to be. I was backing out of a parking spot and I couldn't see very well, as I was parked between two cargo vans. Anyway, as luck would have it, I managed to back into another car as it drove passed the spot I was backing out of and I scuffed the fender, and I may have dented it, too. Anyway, as it happened on private property, there was nothing the police could do except tell us to settle it ourselves. In the end, I had to pay the driver of the other car $300, and I wasn't happy about it, as I felt it was a no-fault accident, and the other party wasn't too nice about the whole thing.

So I paid it in crumpled one dollar bills, wrapped in a manila envelope sealed with almost and entire roll of duct tape. Had the idea occurred to me, I would have paid it in loose pennies, or perhaps pesos. In retrospect, I could have handled it better.

Fast-forward nearly seventeen years.

I'm sitting in Panda Express with my wife when the driver of the other car walks in with two of her co-workers, and lo and behold - I suddenly have a chance to offer an amends for an act of spite I committed when I was 19. Step 9: Make amends for harm I’ve done to others when possible, except when to do so would harm them or others.

So....I had the choice to make. Do I make my amends and say I'm sorry for doing such an immature and jerk thing or do I sit still, finish my lunch and slink out, hoping they've forgotten about me? I have to admit - a large part of me wanted to sit there, dig in and forget about all 12 steps. At the end of the day, though, I couldn't do it, and I got up and walked over.

I guess it went OK. She looked like she was a little embarrassed and annoyed that I had approached their table, and I got the impression that she would be glad when it was over. But yes - she remembered what happened. She said they laughed about it, and were just happy that I paid them, regardless of how obnoxiously I did it. I said my peace, said I was sorry, took responsibility, and offered to make any amends I could for what I had done. She seemed pretty surprised and said that she was surprised that I remembered it at all, and that everything was OK and I didn't need to do anything. the truth of the matter is the event was burned into my mind because of how angry I was, and how much measure I took to inflict the maximum amount of discomfort I could without getting myself in trouble. In fact, I had even planned to go back years later (when there would be an absence of any real motive) and get my revenge, like shooting a 12 gauge slug into the engine block or something similar - no lie, man. I've never forgotten it, any of it, but maybe now I can.

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PS - if any of you guys believes I owe you an amends, please let me know. I don't want to keep it from you, and you can't get them all at once. Sometimes you have to wait until you have the chance to make them, even if the opportunity occurs 17 years later.