In Which I Am a Bad Driver
Scene: Dorothy's parking lot. (Some people have garages - Dorothy and her beloved have a garage-sized chunk of crumbling concrete. It parks six vehicles. It sucks.)
Dorothy gets in her Explorer, realizing she is late to meet friends for lunch. Dorothy is preoccupied with thinking that she doesn't actually know the name of the restaurant in which she is lunching, she is still upset about having to wear pants because she discovered the day before that none of her jeans fit, and she has generally high anxiety to begin with. (Dorothy always refers to herself in third person when she is upset.)
Dorothy turns on the car, realizes her beloved has set the radio to SPORTS AM RADIO, AGAIN, and with annoyance turns it back to NPR. She checks for her cell phone to call friends to see where the hell the restaurant is. As she is dialing, she hits the gas to back up.
You see it coming, don't you?
RIGHT INTO THE CLEANING WOMAN'S CAR. The cleaning woman, who earlier that hour had broken a picture frame in the little angel's room.
THANKFULLY, Dorothy had responded well to the breakage and told her not to worry about even replacing it. THANK GOD Dorothy did not care much about the picture frame and did not make a big deal about it, because a picture frame is oh, so much less important than someone's main form of transportation.
Dorothy immediately calls her beloved, who of course does not answer the phone, because men do not answer their cell phones when caller ID tells them it's their wives calling.
Dorothy mea culpas to the cleaning woman, who is more than gracious. It is a big mess. The hood is dented. The bumper cover is dented. The driver's side light is dangling from a cord. The entire front of the car was made of plastic, and plastic does not respond well to being hit. It cries out melodramatically and crumples to the ground, sobbing.
Dorothy calls her mechanic, conveniently located two blocks away. He comes down and looks at it, says it's drivable, and (Dorothy thinks to herself) witnesses the fact that the only damage on the much-damaged car that Dorothy caused is the front stuff. This may come in handy when the bill comes.
Dorothy realizes she's going to have to pay for this outright during a lean period. Dorothy knows that if her insurance company is asked to pay for it, they will take it out of her ass in myriad ways not worth the cost of repairs at a downtown repair shop. The cleaning woman says she knows someone who will do good work, even though (insert racial epithet that Dorothy pretended not to hear).
About the time that the mechanic was helping Dorothy pick pieces of shattered plastic off the driveway, Beloved finally showed up. He went over and assured the cleaning lady of the exact same things Dorothy had previously assured her. She held up the broken picture frame. "It's a bad day for breaking things," she said.
He looked at Dorothy,fixing her with an evil grin. "Now why can't you be more like her and break PICTURE FRAMES?'