Tuesday, May 20, 2003

Sunday afternoon, around 6pm. The phone rings. My father leaves the house in a hurry. The caller remained on the line talking to Nayeli. I picked up the handset and found out the caller was Laprima; a car accident had taken place. Laprima had to hang up for some reason so I didn’t get the basic info. Did she hit or was she hit?

As I continued preparing my dinner, I was thinking about how a car accident involving Laprima was foreseeable. Laprima has been driving for less than a year, and in that amount of time she has driven more than I’ve driven for the past three years combined. The more you drive the less likely you are to be involved in an accident. Seems logical. In addition, she doesn’t exactly drive like 65 year-old Mrs. Harrison, mother of five, grandmother of four, widow of one, wife of another. Laprima steps on the gas with guts.

When Laprima came home I went outside and checked out the car she was driving. I went around it and saw no dents. Good. What was her part in the accident?

We talked about the accident that evening and she told me that she felt partly responsible for it. That’s why she stopped to talk to the two other parties. One was an Armenian young man and the other was a Salvadorean in his 40s. The Armenian was driving a Mercedes. The Salvadorean carried a driver’s license but did not carry auto insurance. What insurance can he afford if he probably doesn’t have a good job because his English is very limited? The Armenian had encountered the perfect victim.

Laprima says that the Armenian was being hostile. He was placing the blame on the Salvadorean man and threatened to call the police if he refused to pay for the damage. The Salvadorean was forced into a corner: accept the charges and pay for the damages or have to deal with the police, who would automatically give him a ticket and impound his car for not carrying insurance. He was screwed anyway he looked at it.

Unfortunately, the Armenian knew this. For that reason, the Armenian could juice this guy for all he is worth. According to Laprima, there were some old scratches on the Mercedes and the Armenian claimed they were caused by the accident. As far as Laprima knows, the Salvadorean will be paying for those, too…

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