A few months ago, I stopped at the liquor store on my way home from visiting my mom. I purchased a couple bottles of wine for a writing retreat scheduled that weekend. Then I went to the gas station to fill up my car. I hate leaving my house, so I try to do all of my errands at one time.
I left the gas station and was heading home when it happened. I was in the right lane of a four-lane street. Someone decided to make a left turn out of a parking lot and wanted to be in my lane–where I was. They even had the audacity to honk their horn at me. I slammed on my brakes. The bag of wine slid to the floor. I heard glass shatter. A moment or two later I smelled the Menage a Trois Silk red blend.
I was tempted to follow the idiot and throw the broken bottle at them, but I “behaved.”
I got home. The mag of Relax Riesling was undamaged, but I had a real mess with the red. I had to toss my wine shopping bag because of the glass. The front passenger floor of my car was soaked. I attempted to clean it out myself, which was an exercise in futility. So I put the wine-drenched floor mat into a garbage bag and drove to a popular chain car wash.
I explained the situation to the person on duty when I ordered the inside of my car to be detailed. I was very concerned about being stopped and the cops smelling wine. So I spent a lot of money I hadn’t planned to spend getting the interior of my vehicle cleaned.
A couple of days later, I was heading out to a class and decided to put the floor mats down, assuming they’d dried from their cleaning. And three of them had. But the car wash people had taken the wine-soaked mat and returned it to the garbage bag in which I had delivered it to them. You know, the one with spilled wine in it? And plastic, so it couldn’t dry? Yeah. That bag.
I was really nice when I called the car wash and spoke to the manager. He had me come right in, personally recleaned the mat, tossed the wine-spattered bag, and gave me coupons for future use.
The next day, as I was loading my car for the retreat, I put the newly cleaned mat down and noticed that even though I had paid to have the interior detailed, no one had cleaned the wine splash from the side of the console. Fortunately, I was able to get it.
So I lost two chunks of time, not to mention over $100 (car wash, detailing, bottle of wine) because some idiot didn’t think the rules of the road applied to them.
