I Am SO Sorry For Scratching Your Bumper!

Hi Angie,

I am so sorry to bother you at home!

But, uhm...

I found out that you called in sick today. And you didn't say how long you were expecting to be gone, so I got worried.

Especially since we really need that quarterly report as soon as possible. Especially since my our productivity bonus is on the line! I sent you emails and messages this morning, and I've been trying to call you the whole afternoon, but you didn't pick up!

Yes, I understand that you've been lying in bed with a fever, but it would have been polite to let me know whether you'd be in the office tomorrow or not.

Anyway, since I am a good person and I really care about the bonus the team, I had to come in person!

Not empty-handed, of course! I want you to recover as soon as possible, preferably by tomorrow morning, so I was going to bring you some special chicken soup.

It's Nana's recipe: extra hot, extra healing!

I had it nicely stuck between the windshield and the dashboard so the sun would help keep it hot.

But, uhm...

Some jerk cut me off just as I was about to turn into the parking in front of your house, the one on top of the hill! I had to hit the brakes so hard that the soup spilled all over my pants... and Oh my, was it extra hot!

I managed to scrape away the bits before it caused any real damage. Thank you for asking.

Anyway, I am so sorry that I couldn't get you the soup!

And there might be one more teeny tiny thing that might need your attention, and it might be a little bit extremely urgent.

I don't know how to say it.

But, uhm...

In the heat of the moment, as I scrambled around trying to save my scorched thighs, I accidentally stepped on the gas pedal, and it seems that when I had to break that hard because of that jerk before, the clutch shifted to reverse without me noticing, and I might have—very gently!— bumped into your truck.

I didn't even realize that it was your truck!

Yet, since I am such a decent person, I immediately wrote my insurance data on a Post-it and jumped out of my car, ready to stick it on the truck's windshield.

But, uhm...

I don't know how this could have even happened... maybe I leaned onto the windshield a teensy weensy bit too much, or I was a little bit extra zealous in patting onto the post-it so it would stick nicely, or I bumped the truck just an itsy bitsy harder than I thought... or you just forgot about the handbrake!

Yes, you have lived on the hill your whole life, and the handbrake should be an automation, but you were sick, and it must have slipped your mind, cause when I patted the post-it on the glass, the truck started rolling backwards.

And that is when I realized that it was your truck!

I mean, I would have done it for everyone because I'm just such a good person, but knowing it was your truck gave me a higher sense of urgency. So I drove down as fast as I could to see what happened and obviously to help as much as possible.

It was harder than expected to figure out where the truck went. It seems that it didn't just go down in a straight line, but somehow steered here and there.

Which is great because there were no casualties!

But, uhm...

By the time I found out where the truck went, there were police everywhere: it seems that the truck smashed right through the university's wall. It actually looked quite spectacular with bits of wall and debris everywhere—there are lots of pictures and videos online when you want to see them—and your truck was somehow almost unscathed!

In fact, my insurance company guy says that I have very little to pay out. Isn't that great?

Oh, you want to know about the police?

Well, uhm...

It might kind of sort of be that the truck went—just a little bit!—through the wall of the biology department where they stored the animal experiments.

The hole in the wall wasn't even that big, I swear!

But, uhm...

There might have, maybe, been an eensy weensy bit of a domino effect, and a few of the cages fell with just enough force to break the locks, and the gap in the wall was just big enough for some of the smaller animals to make it outside before the police's arrival.

I, being a brave and good person, obviously immediately explained to the police that this was all a silly misunderstanding!

And I fully took responsibility for being a caring coworker who brings soup to a sick coworker, nay, friend, and who would leave their insurance data even for a meagerly scratched bumper.

And if we really think about it, the rest is up to you, forgetting the handbrake and that jerk who cut the way for me...

But, uhm...

The police stopped me, saying that I sounded incoherent and that this must have been the planned work of some extreme animal rights activist or a terrorist, considering that the released animals had been experimented on with pretty nasty things.

While they were taking my statement, they were about to run your licence plates to incriminate you for the whole incident... but we got a lucky break!

It seems that some of the escaped animals were rats, who have been given a new drug that is supposed to speed up tooth growth, so they have an increased need to chew on things, and they took a liking to the cables. So all lights and communications at the police station were cut off for a few minutes before the emergency generator kicked in!

I took the chance of the commotion and came here to warn you. I also took my Post-it with me. Only so I could give it to you and most certainly not to remove my data from the scene.

Yes, I might have, just a little bit, skipped the part where I gave the police my name during the statement. But they didn't believe my explanation anyway! And, if you really think about it, given the current circumstances, it is better for you if fewer things tie you to the scene, and we are, after all, coworkers. So I definitely did you a solid there.

And since I came all the way here, you have the time to come up with an alibi that is more believable than "I was lying in bed with a fever"... You're welcome!

You know how you could thank me? You could finish that quarterly report tonight!

You can write it by hand in the beautiful lights of the giant radioactive bats that are now illuminating the sky...