I got horned
By dragonstar13
@dragonstar13 (1465)
United States
August 8, 2007 12:25am CST
Yep, you read that right, I got horned.
Last February I was going to lunch with some people from work to celebrate the boss's birthday. In the parking lot, I got rear ended. The impact was so slight that I didn't even know anything had happened until the other driver pulled my door open and tried to pull me from my car.
I sat in shock as she and her companion, two very tiny Asian women, yammered at me in a foreign language. After two hours in the parking lot, the driver of the other car slugging my boss, the police intervening and tons of humiliation and embarrassment for me things got sorted out.
According to the other driver, she thought I was leaving and tried to drive behind me to get the spot before I could pull into it (yeah, that didn't make sense to me either when she said it.) I pointed out I was pulling into the spot not leaving and she should have waited till it was safe.
In response she said she was in the right because she horned me. (Translation: she honked her horn before driving into the back of my car.) In her mind this made her wrong and put me at fault for the accident.
Long story short...she insisted I apologize for being rear ended by her and my boss apologize for being struck by her or she was going to file assault charges against my boss. (My boss had put her hand on the woman's shoulder to try to guide her out of the way of traffic...apparently in China that is considered assault and of course we Americans bow to the demands of all the non-citizens who come to our country.)
I tried to put the whole incident out of my mind and get on with my life. But for some reason I couldn't. I didn't want to drive, I would only park in spots were I could drive forward to leave. I had an unnatural fear that I would get hit again and this time it wouldn't be a tiny woman but a big angry man who would succeed in pulling me from my car.
Things got so bad I ended up arguing with everyone at work, almost lost my job and got sent for counseling. Which turned out to be a life saver. Five months later, I am free from the fears and the nightmares, I have returned to work and am feeling happy again. My boss is very happy with my work and glad to have the old me back again. I am ready to move on.
My family, however, feels I should sue the other driver for actual and punitive damages. Although my car wasn't damaged, I missed a lot of work, used up all my leave time, have had to take anti depressants and mood stabilizers which are not covered by my insurance and have to pay a copay each week to a therapist and once a month to a psychiatrist.
I have spent a lot of money as a result of the other drivers actions -- and how do you measure the damage to my career and professional reputation and more importantly time with my family that was lost when I couldn't get out of bed and face the world?
But the thought of dredging this all up again, of having to go to court to testify, to have to deal with that horrible woman again, just stresses me out. I want to put it behind me and get on with my life.
What do you think?
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