On Black Friday while sitting in the Best Buy parking lot, a guy hit my car. This past weekend, we were finally able to get it in for repairs.

It all started because of a TV.

As you may recall, a couple of months ago my 55″ television died. If there was any silver lining to that cloud it was that the television had the courtesy to end itself just a few weeks before Black Friday. I asked Susan to keep an eye out for a good sale on televisions, and she found one — another 55″, for less than I paid for the first one, on sale at Best Buy. Susan paid for the television online and in the height of madness the morning of Black Friday, we went to pick it up.

Mind you, we didn’t have to pick it up then. We could have picked it up any time during a five day window. But if you know Susan, you know she loves to be in the middle of a madhouse. Remember those videos from the 1980s where mobs of people rushed into department stores, pushing and shoving to try and get a Cabbage Patch doll? Susan’s dream is to be in the middle of that. My dream is to be as far away as possible from that. Like, in Cambodia or something.

On the morning of Black Friday we made our way to Best Buy, parked in one of the curbside pick-up spots, and waited for someone to bring my new television out to me car. We hadn’t been parked for more than 30 seconds when we heard someone honking his Suburban’s horn aggressively at pedestrians as they had the audacity to walk through the parking lot. A few seconds later, the Suburban made its way down our row and began to pull into the parking spot next to ours. Now I just looked it up and the average Suburban is 81 inches wide and if I had to guess I would say that parking spot was 82″ wide. There was really no chance of him getting into that spot and if he did, there would be no way he (or we) could open our doors. Or breath.

And so of course when he pulled into the spot, he sideswiped my car. I wasn’t sure what had happened at first — all I knew is that my entire car moved, but we were in park. “Did that guy just hit my car?” I asked Susan, and before she could answer, he backed up and did it again.

HE BACKED UP AND DID IT AGAIN.

I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm myself before the man who hit my car came over to apologize and give us his insurance information… and after a couple of minutes we realized, the guy was not coming over or getting out of his car. He obviously thought we were not in the car and had we not been in there, 100%, he would have left and not left a note.

It was up to Susan to approach the driver, who acted like he didn’t know he had hit my car (twice). His response was to get out, look at the back of my side, and then try to clean off the damage with his spit. The paint had been completely scraped off my bumper and my taillight was cracked and he tried to fix those things with his magic spit. By the end of the interaction, he was grumbling under his breath and I was grumbling under mine and Susan handled everything.

Now here’s the thing. The damage is not “that” bad. If it had only been the bumper and not the taillight, I probably could have buffed most of it out and maybe covered the rest of it up with some paint. I’m not paint and body guy and I might have even been willing to live with it. My car already has a few nicks and dings, and I know filing a claim has the potential to raise this guy’s insurance. I am ashamed to admit this, but when a guy hits my car and then acts like he didn’t and was going to drive away, then that made the decision to file a claim against his insurance much simpler.

Over the weekend, Susan and I dropped my car off at the body shop. The estimate to repair the scuff and the taillight is $1,300. (We saved someone some money by not getting a rental car.) I tried to convince the body shop that the man’s Suburban had also caused all the hail damage, but they weren’t buying it.

I’m not sure how long the repair will take, but in the meantime the van has become my primary vehicle. Big Rob’s Van to the rescue!

Oh, and the TV works great.