It's a Mad, Mad, World.

It's a Mad, Mad world, and I'm mad, mad, mad.  This is a reference to a favorite movie on the Pilarski side of the family.  It's a movie that I hate, but I decided that awhile ago.  We've been watching more old movies lately, and I have a different perspective of the world than I used to, so I think I need to give it another chance.

This story needs some background information.  The street in front of our house used to be two-way.  Right in front of our house, it changes to a single lane and when it was a two-way street, cars used to have to take turns to drive past our row of houses.  The intention was to slow down traffic in front of the houses, but the effect was to turn driving into a game of chicken, right in front of little children's homes.  All it took was two drivers with an elevated sense-of-self to think they deserved to be first, and viola. You had two cars trying to fit in a single lane and one would eventually be pushed to the sidewalk shaking his fist while the other zoomed past and usually, both would lean on their horns.  Again, right in front of our house.

Once the street turned to one-way, that scenario improved.  Although for us, it now means we have to drive an extra three kilometers out of our way to get to the same section of the road 500 meters away from our house.  But it was a small price to pay for safety and I'm happy to do it.  Besides, as my neighbors and I all found out, it's an expensive ticket.  No less than 150 euros for driving the wrong way which is more than I can budget for on a regular basis, so we are sure to always drive the right way, even though it's a hassle.  And again, there's the safety thing.

But every now and then, and it's happening more and more lately, there are cars that drive the wrong way.  They come from the neighborhood and are trying to take the shortcut to the road that goes to the Ring.  The road isn't marked as well as it should be, and there are also a lot of people that are in a hurry and just don't care.  It's a dangerous scenario, because the cars driving the right way, drive fast and there is a big blind curve that could result in a really bad head-on collision.

The other day, I was arriving home from school with a car full of kids.  I even had an extra one (the neighbor.)  A car was approaching head-on, driving the wrong way.  We were at a section of the road where only one car fits at a time, I was already passing through when the other driver insisted on coming straight at me.  With a little bit of attitude to let them know they were driving the wrong way (I promise, no hand gestures or anything obscene) I moved to my right when there was a section of road without a parked car.  But I admit, I took my time about it.

I looked at the driver, straight on.  He was a young adult male, about 19 or 20 years old (yes, I occasionally watch police procedure dramas and don't forget that I'm on my second mystery novel).  He was wearing a baseball cap and driving an older dark-gray or black sedan.  There were at least three other boys in the car.   He sped up and as he did, the back end of his car clunked into the back end of mine.  I immediately put the car in park and jumped out  but he stepped on the gas and got the heck out of there as quick as he could.  I squinted into the sunlight but was unable to read his license plate.

I came home and called the police (actually, I made my neighbor do it for me, with my poor french and all) and the police said it would have been nice to have the license plate number (no s&*t sherlock) and to come in to file a report if my insurance needed it.  Sigh.  And then my neighbor said, I wonder if it's the kids that play basketball at the park?  And come to think of it, I have seen a dark gray/black vehicle parked there on a regular basis.  The boys play basketball at the park around the corner.  They always park blocking the drive to the entrance, so it's easy to remember seeing it there.

I spent the rest of the evening being mad about it.  I was mad that there are people that think rules don't apply to them. I was mad that I'm a good person and this happened to me.  And then I turned on the news.   I've been watching the local news lately as 1.) it's a good french lesson and 2.) as expats it's easy to get stuck t in a bubble where we don't know what's going on locally unless we make an effort.  And the lead-in story on the news was about the terrorist in Toulouse, followed up by funeral coverage for the joint funeral of six of the children from last week's bus crash.  That's enough perspective for me not to care in the least about a dent in the back of my car.

Friday, after school, I made AJ come with me to the police station to file a report.  And guess what??  On our way to the police station, we saw a dark gray/black car pulling out of the driveway parking spot at the basketball court.  He thought I was kindly letting him out of his parking spot, when really I was trying to find a pen and paper to write down his license plate number.

After an hour-and-a-half at the police station AJ and I had successfully filed a police report.  We had a close call and almost got turned away, when the flustered desk officer didn't want to take a report that wasn't in french, but we prevailed.  I am grateful that I have a personal interpreter in the form of a really cute 8-year old.  While he was initially excited to see what a police station looked like, I'm sure the novelty wore after the first ten minutes.  But I couldn't have been more proud when, after an hour into it, he turned to me and said "mom, I can see why you made me come with you."

So the car will get fixed and maybe the irresponsible teenager will get a good lesson in owning one's actions.  And now AJ and I can add "visit police station" to the long list of "things we got to do in Belgium."