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Fact for today 7.22% of Warming Up Readers come from outside the UK. The furthest afield of these comes from the moon. The closest abroad person is from Oxford (though I suspect this may be a dirty protest at the fact there is no button for him or her to click in the UK, the Oxford ponce). Hello to all you readers around the world. It is good to see the miracle of the internet wasted on this frivolous rubbish.
A few weeks ago my parked car was involved in an accident. Apparently some people escaping from some possible crime rammed into the car next to mine, which then smashed into mine. The other cars took the brunt of the damage and mine only got a minor bump that broke the radiator grill, cracked the number-plate and dislodged the bumper. The other innocent car belonged to the mouse-like man who lives opposite me (he's just a bit timid and small - he doesn't have big ears or live in a tiny hole in the wall). He was much more upset as his old car was probably going to be a write-off and even if the other people coughed up for the insurance (what were the chances that they'd have insurance if this was a getaway car) he feared it would not get him a new car that was as reliable as his.
My own damage was so insignificant that it wasn't worth claiming on the insurance (especially as I have to pay the first £250 anyway), but unbelievably the driver of the offending vehicle was insured and so I got the repairs done for nothing.
The car was delivered back today and I was very pleased to note that it had been cleaned and valeted (the only bad news being that it means I no longer have an immediate reason to visit "Hand Jobs"). The car had been really dirty and especially in need of a vaccuum and I found myself feeling delighted that because of someone else's mistake I had got my car cleaned for nothing. For once I was one of life's winners. Something bad had happened but I'd come out on top.
Was it wrong of me to feel so pleased? Especially when I had seen how sad the event had made my opposite neighbour?
Perhaps it was. But I felt happy nonetheless and having a clean car for free lifted my day.If only the old man had thought to stand by my car, his silent tears splashing onto the shimmering bodywork of my car, then maybe I would have felt a pang of selfish guilt. But I might have just told him to piss off and stop smearing my car.
