A lesson learned about friends, cars and insurance for both

To the Editors:

“Life is unfair,” my dad used to say. Actually, he would say, “Life is a bitch, and then you die,” but I felt like it was the same message. However, only lately have I embraced this concept wholeheartedly, during a recent episode involving a friend, my car and $8,000 in damages. Mind you, I was miles away at the time he drove my car into someone else, and the meridian, respectively, but in subsequent weeks I’ve found out that it doesn’t matter.
At first, I was relieved. Relieved that no one was hurt, and that for once, I couldn’t be held responsible. My driving record isn’t free of its fender-benders, but as far as my insurance company knows, I am a picture-perfect driver. You can imagine my chagrin when I was informed that it was worse that I hadn’t been driving, and that since he wasn’t a policyholder on my insurance, I was 100 percent responsible for all the damages.
That’s right-my name (and my parents’ names, which you can be sure made them really happy) is the name on the car, and the car is responsible for the damages. It follows, therefore, that he gets off scott-free while I’m stuck with a future of high-risk insurance, possible medical bills and no car. Like my dad said, life isn’t fair.
So what to do when you take it in the “out-hole” from someone you thought you trusted? Forgive my rhetorical question, but it’s actually very real. Take them in front of Judge Judy and have an all-American slap-fest? Drag them down the street in their underwear chanting? Because the real crux is, despite a Park Avenue upbringing, and a family that pays his way at Oberlin, the boy can’t come up with my money! “One day older and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt.” Sorry, boy, but that won’t do, you now owe your soul to (my) company store.
I wish. This is where life gets really unfair: he doesn’t owe me the trash he floated in on. Washing his hands of the situation right now would be within the law, and me taking him out back for an old-school lesson in whoop-ass would not be considered a lawful response. So here I am, holding on for dear life to the ideas of a moral, personally responsible society…but isn’t this the same country where a man sued in court for damages when a sperm bank burned down containing his precious soldiers? Where a burglar sued a family for impaling himself on a knife when he fell through their skylight, and won? The justice system seems like an ironic name at this point to me, and the only place I have to turn is my gang of goons. How do I take the high road without making myself flat broke?
There’s the chance he’ll pay. I cling to that, with every fiber in my being, because it’s “my only hope.” But that’s not very consoling. This world is full of lies and cheats, and bad things happen to good people (another truism my dad likes to use just when it was really what I needed to hear [sarcasm? Of course not!]). There’s always blackmail, a more persuasive option, but when you’re a softie like me (who doesn’t believe in carrying sticks, because it implies someone is going to get hit by a big-ass stick) threats seem like bluffs until I’ve been called on them, and then the whole blackmail power dynamic is already gone, anyway, so what was the point? So, yeah, I tried blackmail, but even when I have it in spades, this ever-endearing “friend” counters my statements with his own threats. Another dead-end.
At this point it seems questionable as to why a person would ever lend something as expensive (and heavy) as a car to someone with so few moral sensibilities. I should admit, he’s an old boyfriend. Which gave him some added privileges that have quickly transformed into additional wishes for vengeance. And despite my powerlessness in the eyes of the law, I am intent on exacting the aforementioned pain, if I don’t see my money, that is.
So what have we all learned from this? I learned that lending your car out, to anyone, at 19, is a very bad idea. I’ve also learned that my self-important morals don’t get me very far in this world, and that I can just as easily turn into a vicious vindictive snarling beast, when my back is to the wall. Maybe the lesson is that, no matter how different I may think I am from this kid, I’ve proven myself equally low through my actions. Or maybe the lesson is, insurance companies are evil. Either way, it’s been a learning experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone, so last words of advice: keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and your possessions under padlock.

—Jessy Bradish