Door Ding

This story was recounted to me -

I was in my first apartment. My wife and I have been married a short while. I come home one evening, and the apartment next door is hosting a party. This was not unusual.

However, I see my wife hearing out the blinds. She was not happy. When I walked in and asked her what the problem was, she told me that one of the partygoers had opened her car door into my wife's car door. Sure enough, there was a ding in my wife's car door.

At that time, I was having to work with my wife showing her how to handle many situations in life. She was too quiet to ever be considered confrontational, even to a fault. And this was one such situation. She had not confronted the person who dinged her car.

I decided to lessons would be learned.

Taking my wife by the hand, we went outside and confronted the young lady who had dinged my wife's car door. She didn't know what to say so she asked for help from a friend, whom she called "Mister." "Mister what," I don't know and would never learn. Nevertheless, this Mister kept trying to interject himself into the conversation between me and the young lady.

Several times, I brushed away mister, when he would try to interject. Finally, I turned towards him and asked flat out, "look, is this apartment yours? [No] Is this car yours? [No] Then butt out - because this conversation isn't yours, either."

Turning back to the young lady I put my plan into action. I asked how much her deductible was on her insurance - it was $500. I told her she owed me that $500 for the claim, that I had already written down her license plate number, and that if she did not pay me in cash, I would report her to the police for a hit and run. Surprisingly, she came up with the $500 cash within a day.

Naturally, I hired one of those dent removal places for about 25 bucks the next week.

Lessons Learned?
My wife learned to confront people who had wronged her.
The young partygoer learn to be more careful opening her car door in the future.
I don't think Mister learned anything.