Honesty

I saw honesty today in the Safeway parking lot.  It was right there in front of me.

I was getting into my own car after having done my shopping when I heard a loud crunching noise.  It was that distinctive sound of one car crunching another.  

There is nothing like it so I won't bother with metaphors or similies or any other literary attempt to describe what I heard.  It was the sound of one car hitting another.  If you've heard it, you know there's no way to describe it other than saying what it was.

I looked up and saw the truck on the left had backed out of its parking space and hit bumper of the red car on the right.  Crunch.  Okay, I could not resist trying to describe it.

But here came the moment; the seconds in which a person can decide to do the right, but bothersome thing, or do the wrong, but easy thing.   

How would the driver of the truck handle the situation?   Would he drive away, leaving the red car driver to wonder, "where did that come from?" when next she noticed her rear bumper? Perhaps she would even see the dent as she approached her car with her shopping cart, or maybe she wouldn't notice it for days and days.  Who's to day how closely another looks at their car?   There are simply too many variables.

So what would the truck driver do?  Would he take the hard and right way or the easy and wrong way?  I went to get an ice cream at the Pink House.

When I returned here is what I saw.  The man who drove the truck was sitting in it writing a note to the owner of the red car, presumably explaining what happened.   Good.  He was doing the right, but hard thing.

But wait!  Here comes the owner of the red car!  The truck driver got out and appeared to be explaining the situation to her.  The next thing I knew, the truck driver was driving away and the red car driver was in her car ready to go, but only after looking closely at the damage to her bumper, rubbing it a few times, then pulling out of her parking space and driving on to her next destination.

So here was honesty, right in front of me.  The truck driver could have driven away, and no one would be the wiser.  But he didn't.  He stayed and took responsibility for what had happened.   He took the time - which turned out to be considerable - to tell his story and make sure he took responsibility for what he had done, even though it was an accident.

In the scope of parking lots incidents, this one was minor, but in the scope of life itself, you know as well as I that we are glad things turned out the way they did.