HM Is On The Lam

I'm a fugitive. I'm on the lam. Will somebody harbor me? I've got
to lay low for a while. According to HH, anyway.

Remember when HH backed his giant Ford F250 Crew Cab Long
Bed 4x4 pickup over a compact car, slicing the hood like a can
opener? Well, today Hillbilly Mom herself committed an bit of a
backing faux pas at the bank...

Funny thing is, I never park anywhere that I have to back the
Large SUV without room to see behind it. I won't pull up to drop
off the kids at school where I have to back up. I park at the end
of a row, or somewhere I know nothing is going to close me in.
Funny thing is, I wasn't parked at the bank. I was waiting in line
to cash a check from the people who share our lake lot. This cash
budget idea is going to be the end of me. Funny thing is, this isn't
exactly a laughing matter.

There was one car at the drive-thru thingy. The commercial lane
was empty. The lane on my right was empty. Hey, that's all there
are: three lanes. It's the middle of nowhere. So, this car in front of
me was taking a while. In fact, it was turned off. Which usually
says 'little old lady having her checkbook balanced by the drive-
thru teller' to me. So I decided that I might as well back up to get
into the right lane. Even though there is usually just one teller in the
afternoon, they alternate between the two regular drive-thru lanes.
So if somebody else pulled up in the right lane, they would get
served before me when I pulled forward.

But there was nobody in the right lane. I looked in the rearview
mirror. Nothing. I looked in the driver's side mirror. Nothing. I
looked in the passenger side mirror. Nothing. I turned around to
look out the back. Nothing. I even said to my #2 son in the back
seat, "See anything behind us?" He said, "Nope." I put it in reverse.
I backed about two feet. I felt a bump. I put it in drive and pulled
up to where I had started. I got out, and saw a little black car
behind me. A little black car that had stopped my backing progress.

A hair-thinning man more older than younger, with a grayish pointy
meth-looking beard was out of the car, with a white dog on a
chain. "Get back in the car!" he shouted. But I figured he meant
the dog, so I went on back to see what hideous damage I could
have done to his little sardine can. A very clean, black, sardine
can, I might add. There was not a mark on it. On the can, that is.
The license plate was kind of crumpled, like the foil after you
unwrap a miniature red or green holiday Reese's Peanut Butter
Cup. My OnStar round thingy that is on the trailer hitch had hit
his little car in the license plate. I grabbed the license and bent it
back a little bit, nearer to its original shape. Our bumpers had not
even touched. Well, my bumper had not sliced open the hood of
his car like a sardine can, I suppose, because there would have
been none of the bumpin' of bumpers, what with my LSUV being
so much taller than his little car. I told him, "I didn't see you. It
looks like I've crunched your license plate." He came around to
look at the damage. Then he drug the dog back to the car.

Now here's the part I don't get. He seemed like he was afraid of
me. Hey! He's the one with the dog on a chain! He acted like he
didn't want to get close to me or talk to me. Kind of timid-like. I
don't really think he was a meth-head. He didn't look like that
style, but who knows what that looks like these days. I thought
maybe he didn't want to be bothered, or maybe he was drunk
and didn't want the police called. Something didn't seem quite
right. He called into the car, to his wife, I suppose, "She just bent
the license plate." The woman nodded her head. He stood by his
door, looking at me. I stood between the cars, looking at him.

"I have insurance," I told him. "I have insurance, too," he said.
"We can call somebody if you think we need to," I said. He kind
of shook his head. "It's OK?" I asked. He nodded, and got back
into the car. So I climbed back into my LSUV and pulled forward
to the money-tube-sucker-upper thingy. A red truck had pulled
in behind him while I was out of the LSUV. Apparently, nobody
wanted to use that right lane. It was open, you know.

So now HH tells me that I should have called the police. Because
now the guy can call them with my license number and tell them
I left the scene of an accident. The same HH who said during his
unfortunate sardine-can-slicing incident, "There's no need to call
the police. We're on a private parking lot. They can't do anything
except take a report." Which is what the principal at another school
told me after a kid's girlfriend plowed his farm truck into the back
of my parked 3-month-old Nissan Sentra. Which was kind of
expensive to repair, and took the whole school year to get the
money out of his parents, because they wouldn't turn it into their
insurance because he'd had a recent wreck and had to pay for
plastic surgery for a different girlfriend or some such thing.

Anyhoo...the point is that I got out and offered to call the police,
and give him my info, but he didn't want to. I am not a psychic.
I don't know what he wanted. He seemed like a nice enough
guy. I would have been madder than he was if somebody backed
up into my little sardine can. I could not hold him down and
force him to take my info while I called the police. There was
no damage, except to his license plate, and I'm pretty sure the
insurance won't pay to hammer it back into shape. He had pulled
up so close that I couldn't get a good head of steam backing up to
WHACK his car and go over the top of it, like GraveDigger, or
BigFoot, or those monster truck thingies.

People! If you can't see the driver's face in the mirror, the driver
probably can't see your little go-kart behind him. And please tell
that to the black-haired little moonfaced kid in the red sardine can
who tailgated me for 5 miles this morning. If I hadn't seen him slam
on the brakes at the Wal*Mart exit, and whip out behind me like
a Roller Derby queen out on a jam, I wouldn't have known he was
back there, except when he kept swerving over the center line, like
he was going to pass me, but wouldn't. Good thing for him I didn't
need to back up at those three stop signs.

I need one of those LOUD beepy things when I back up.
And one for the LSUV, too.