How I Angered The Temporary Car Insurance Gods

Consider this story a cautionary tale about the importance of being properly insured...and why one shouldn't spit into the wind, I guess. My cousin and I wanted to visit my sister at her college in Boston. The only problem was we didn't have a car. Fortunately, I had a friend with a brand new Jetta and an inability to say no. Things were looking good. The only issue was that this friend, let's call him Dave, was a bit of a worrier. Normally, I find his nervous behavior funny – I tease him all the time about it.

Dave suggested that if I was taking his car for a week, I might want to take out a temporary insurance policy in case anything happens, so that I wouldn't be held financially responsible. It didn't cost much, he said, and it would give me piece of mind during the trip. Typical Dave. Being the rebel that I was, I found this suggestion hilarious in the extreme. Did he really expect a profoundly broke individual like myself to spend valuable beer money on an insurance policy for an accident that had no chance of happening? I mean, I was only going to have the car for a week. How uptight could one person be? I think I took a good 15 minutes out of my schedule to mock Dave in front of my cousin for his neuroses before I felt that he was sufficiently shamed. And off we went.

The ride up to Boston was pretty uneventful. As we approached my sister's campus, I had one of my usual brilliant ideas. Why not call Dave and pretend I had totaled the car? He was probably home worrying about just such an event. He would totally buy it and have a heart attack right there on the phone. My cousin howled with laughter as I prepared for the part:

“Dave, he came out of nowhere. They said it couldn't be fixed. Why O Why didn't I take out a temporary insurance policy like you advised?”

Still chuckling to ourselves, I leaned over to root around in the center console for my cell phone to make the call. I guess I was distracted or something, because I never saw the pickup in front of us stop short at the changing light. That's right, we plowed into the back of him and got into an accident FOR REAL. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I deserved it for tempting fate. You're probably right. And what's more, because I didn't have...wait for it...TEMPORARY CAR INSURANCE, I got stuck with the entire repair bill for both cars. Dave found that part really funny. In fact, he found it so funny that he didn't even care about my damaging his car. Meanwhile, fast forward nine months and I'm STILL paying those bills, and Dave is still laughing at me over what happened. I liked it better when HE was the butt of MY jokes. 

John Rutter, Feb 2010  www.novacon38.org.uk