Kindness is the best insurance

By Nancy Black

“I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers,” Blanche DeBoise famously uttered in Tennessee William’s haunting 1947 play “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

I came out of Walgreens last Thursday at 11 a.m. and saw that my precious, paid-off car had been sideswiped. Both doors on the driver’s side were all scratched up. It was obvious that whoever hit me had been turning into the parking space next to mine and just totally clipped my car on the way in. But there was no car in that parking space now.

“Darn it,” I thought. “Someone just hit and ran.”

As I took a deep breath and looked up to see if Walgreens had cameras, a sweet elderly woman walked up to my car and said: “I did that. I hit your car.”

I burst into tears. I was so blown away that someone had been honest enough to wait in the parking lot until I came out of the store so they could give me their insurance information that the tears just started flowing.

“Thank you so much for being so honest!” I gushed to the woman. She looked kind of offended at my words and quickly said: “Of course I stayed and waited for you. It’s the right thing to do.”

I realized then that I have become jaded. I did not expect someone to do the right thing during these divisive times. In those few moments from when I first saw the damage to my car to when the woman walked up, I had fully convinced myself — via my jaded inner dialogue — that some piece of scum person had hit my car and run from the accident site. 

I was wrong. And I am filled with gratitude that kind people do still exist in the world.

The woman gave me her insurance and driver’s license information and we parted ways. About an hour after the accident, she called and asked if I would be willing to handle the repairs without involving insurance companies. I told her I was. She suggested I go to her auto body shop. I laughed and asked her why she had a favorite body shop, as most people don’t have to deal with body shops but once or twice in their lives. The woman explained that she and her husband have been in the neighborhood for more than 40 years and they have children, etc., so they have dealt with this particular repair shop many times. Fine. I’ll go get an estimate from them, I told her.

Two thousand, three hundred eighty-eight dollars and four cents! ($2,388.04!) That’s how much her guy wanted to fix what are basically minor scratches on both doors. No huge dents; no broken door panels. Just scratches. I couldn’t believe it.

Granted, it has been more than 20 years since I have had to deal with a body shop, so maybe prices have gone up. I decided to get a second opinion. I went to a second auto body shop in East Dallas, didn’t mention anything about the first estimate and asked for their opinion as to the cost of fixing my car. Three thousand, six hundred and twenty-two dollars and 36 cents! ($3622.36!) is what the printout the body shop guy handed me read. 

“No way!” I said to the guy. He said: “Way. I could total your car right now.”

“Total!?” I gasped with utter disbelief. He explained that both doors had to be removed, which meant the windows had to be removed and then they must match and blend the paint 12 inches past the damaged area, blah, blah, blah.

I thanked him for his time and got back in my car. Then, I opened Google on my phone and typed in “best auto body shop in East Dallas.” I found a place in Garland that had great reviews and a five-star rating. I arrived at the third shop and asked the nice man for an estimate, just like I had done the two previous times. He did what the others had done: inspected the damage, scanned the VIN number on my car and then looked up stuff on his computer. Then his printer started whirring as it spit out my estimate. He handed it to me.

Drum roll, please!

Nine hundred sixty dollars and 75 cents ($960.75). I had to laugh out loud. I had to ask him if he was sure. He said, “Yes, why?” 

I explained the situation with the previous, high dollar estimates and even showed him their printouts. Then he laughed out loud. He couldn’t believe the inflated estimates, or the items the other body shops were insisting needed to be repaired. The nice man even went and got his father, the owner of the shop. He didn’t tell him anything, just that he needed to ask him how much he would charge for the repairs to my car. The father confirmed the low price. Then we showed him what the other body shops were asking. He didn’t laugh. He just shook his head in disbelief.

Needless to say, I am getting my car fixed at the five-star shop in Garland with the nice people who didn’t try to scam me out of thousands of dollars’ worth of repairs. Paid for by the also nice lady who hit my car and didn’t flee the scene, even when no one was looking. Yay!

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers!