I got a call today.
A call I had been dreading.
Anticipating wholly with trepidation and anxiety.
For at least the last 4 days or so.
It was a call from my condo association. About that itty, bitty, teeny, tiny little accident I may have gotten into on Friday night.
You know; the one where my garage door just came out of nowhere and jumped right in front of my moving car.
When I answered the phone, the woman on the other end of the line was pleasant enough. But because I knew why she was calling, I think I had a difficult time initially picking up on her niceness.
In my mind, she was the woman who was about to greatly diminish my bank account. I couldn’t help it – I was not so excited to speak to her.
She started out the conversation by asking me if I would be available to meet with the repairmen at some point over the next few days. She said that they would just need someone there to let them into the garage.
I only live 5 minutes from my work, so I told her this wouldn’t be a problem at all.
She said “Great. I’ll give them your number and let them call you to set up an appointment then.”
She seemed like she was about to get off the phone, so I stopped her and said “No one’s told me how much this is going to cost yet. Do you know by any chance? I just need to know if I should call my insurance company?”
And that’s when she said it. The number that punched me in the gut.
“It looks like the total repairs are going to cost about $800.”
I inhaled deeply. $800. My deductable with the insurance company is $500, so for $800 worth of repairs, I knew I would almost be better just paying it all out of pocket and bypassing my insurance entirely.
But $800. Definitely not the kind of money I just have laying around.
Certainly not a stupid fee I was prepared to pay.
I sheepishly said “OK, thanks” and started to get off the phone before she stopped me.
“Wait a second" she said. "There’s a note here I’m not sure about. Can I call you right back?”
I didn't know what she could possibly be talking about, but I told her that would be fine.
In my head, I was still trying to calculate whether or not my miniscule savings could cover this new expense. I wasn't overly concerned with what more she may or may not have for me.
Not 5 minutes later though, she called me back.
And she gave me news I had definitely not been expecting.
“I just talked to my boss” she said. “And it looks like we aren’t charging you at all. If you could still meet with the repairmen that would be great, but we’re going to handle the costs on this from our end.”
I was shocked.
Stunned.
Speechless.
Apparently they had decided that there was just no way to determine how much of the damage was my fault, and how much of it was actually caused by that previous accident in February. She actually said that they were pretty sure that accident had caused far more damage, and that my little ding had simply been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
She called it that. A little ding.
And then she said “The person who hit it back in February never came forward at all, so honestly we’re just grateful you fessed up. You didn’t have to. Nobody reported you, and we never would have been able to prove you had done it. We actually probably would have just thought that it was the previous accident finally causing the entire thing to break down. My boss just wanted to thank you for being honest. We won’t be needing any money from you.”
Again; shocked.
Stunned.
Speechless.
When do things like that ever happen? When does honesty ever really pay off like that?
I was talking to Ryno (an old friend of mine from college) this afternoon, and he said the exact same thing. Usually, people end up screwing themselves over with their own honesty. It’s so rare nowadays that it actually works out in your favor. That you actually get rewarded for coming clean. For being honest. And for owning your mistakes.
I never in a million years expected to get out of this little incident unscathed. I wasn’t looking forward to the consequences, but I fully expected them. I was prepared to pay my part of the damages and to live with the cost of my own stupidity.
But apparently, the universe had other plans today.
And it turns out my condo association is run by some pretty fabulous people.
Before we got off the phone, she asked me again if I wouldn’t still mind meeting the repairmen when the time came.
In my head, I spit out a ridiculously fantastic response all about how at this point, I would happily meet the repairmen in my knickers with a 5 course meal and brand new puppy for each of them if it meant not having to pay $800.
But instead, I barely managed to choke out “Of course.”
Mostly because, I was still shocked.
Stunned.
Speechless.
We like to believe that things like this happen every day. That people are rewarded for their honesty and that good deeds are never punished. But I think more often than not, it's rare to luck out in such a way. To own your mistakes and not get bitten in the butt for your honesty.
But today; today the universe worked as it was meant to.
And for that, I guess I'm still a little speechless.
In the purely vocal sense of course.
Because clearly, I still have it in me to pump out 1000 words of nonsense for this little blog of mine.
Let's face it; this as speechless as I get.
But I suppose this time around, me and my big mouth actually managed to come out on top.
ADSPACE
