If only the Starbucks had been open after Indie Author Night, we would have been delayed.

If only I didn’t have to stop for a restroom. Or didn’t go to the convenience store for drinks. Or had one more — or fewer — reader stop by to chat about my book, ask a question, request a signing.

If only the Universe didn’t put me in front of you at that red light, I would have never been in the position I was in. If my timing had been off by even a few seconds, you might have hurt somebody.

Or worse.

Something was off with the way you let me merge. And how you kept inching forward despite the red light. My wife, beside me in the car, was mid-sentence, telling me about a young employee she’s mentoring at work. Then a shunt. A slight crunch.

What the hell? I didn’t say “hell.”  I look up, the stoplight flicks from red to green. A row of cars stretch to the intersection somewhere in front of me. Nobody has begun to move.

I hit the hazards and get out, blocking the stationary traffic. My arms are wide, palms up. Again, what the hell? You offer me a dismissive shrug through the windshield of your Beamer. I think quickly and take a photo of your license plate, I can see my paint on your bumper. I point to the Whole Foods next to us and hope you follow me in.

You do. In a peculiar manner. Something’s not right.

Just three years ago I rear-ended a fellow attendee leaving the PNWA Writer’s Conference. It was my fault. I owned it. Apologized. My insurance went up. It was quite awkward seeing her getting coffee the next morning. A year later, back at the conference, I offered a friendly, “We really need to stop running into one another like this” at the bagel bar.

Who among us hasn’t had their foot slip off the brake pedal? Or saw traffic move, a green turn arrow perhaps, and jumped the gun?

You get out. Petite, flouncy blouse, stylish pants. Business fashionable. Eyes are glazed.

I ask for your insurance card. “Yeah, sure, sure,” you say, inspecting the paint smear on your front bumper. I take a photo. “It’s a pretty pink,” you say. I think of the red stripe that trims my otherwise pearl-painted car and I groan.

We walk to my car. You look, head cocked to the side. The bumper is scraped and dimpled, the fender flare has popped out. A panel juts from the tail lights like a protruding jaw. “It’s no big deal,” you offer.

I agree the damage isn’t serious and state the customary observation that nobody has gotten hurt, but it’s going to be costly. You repeat yourself. I try to keep the car looking new. I want it looking the way it did ten minutes prior. “It’s a Juke.” Whether you were observing or ridiculing, I can’t tell. I don’t mention that the Nismo RS Juke is the most expensive car we’ve ever owned, but I’m thinking it. I point out that you have a pretty nice BMW, surely you want to keep it looking good. “It’s no big deal.”

“Either way, why don’t you get your insurance card so we can go.” You shrug and go back to your car.

You fumble around in your car for a minute, reminding me of a child thumbing through a Trapper Keeper looking for the homework they never did. I’m leaning against my car. You approach, lean next to me. Puppy dog eyes. Are you flirting? My wife is standing a few steps away. Shoots me a look and shakes her head.

“Where’s your insurance card?”

“I’ll get it,” you say, this time close enough for me notice the stench of alcohol on your breath. Hard liquor.

Damn it.

“You reek of booze,” I say.

Your eyes go wide. You return to your car and get in.

“I’m calling the police,” my wife says. “She’s going to leave.”

We didn’t need to get the police involved. It was a minor accident. But you stink of alcohol. You look clearly out of it.

I hear my wife reporting an accident, but it sounds so minor. The cops aren’t going to come. I didn’t want to do this, but I had to. “Tell them she’s drunk,” I say. “She stinks of booze.”

That changes the conversation with dispatch. Cops are on the way. I sigh.

Most of us, if we’re being honest, have probably driven once or twice when we shouldn’t have. I personally was put through a field sobriety test once, on vacation many years ago, with my sister. Why I was pulled over is, to this day, a mystery, but the cops let me go because we were fifty yards from the hotel parking lot and because I have a natural talent for standing on one leg while counting Mississippis. When I asked, out of curiosity, what I blew on the breathalyzer. The sergeant said if she told me, she’d have to arrest me. She said there was no way she, a rather petite woman, could have had the same BAC and did the tests as well as me.

I’m not perfect. I can sympathize.

You approach, hear the conversation my wife is having on the phone. “You called the police?” Your voice is incredulous.

I don’t blame you. “You left us no choice,” I say, shaking my head.

You return to your car. Make a phone call. A guy arrives a few minutes later. Introduces himself as a coworker. He’s calm. Professional. A mentor, perhaps.

He inspects the damage on my car and shakes his head, but suggests it’s not that bad. I agree. It isn’t. “But she reeks of alcohol, man. We had to call the police.”

He sinks before my eyes.

Eventually, the police come, after you’ve gone into Whole Foods. To pee? For mints? I don’t know.

An unmarked car first, then a marked SUV. Redmond’s finest.

The friend presents himself as the driver of the car behind yours during the accident, a third-party witness. I clarify that you called him. The police thank him for coming, but tell him to leave. He doesn’t. He wants to help.

The police smell alcohol on him too. Tell him to get an Uber and go home. Later, they admit they probably could have arrested him for DUI too.

You owe him.

Later, while filling out paperwork in a light drizzle, I hear the handcuffs cinching on your wrists. I hear you begin to cry. You blame it on your braces hurting, but I know it’s got to be scary. It’s probably the first time you were arrested. I only hope you are at least 21. Are you? The officer sounds compassionate as he guides you into the backseat of the SUV.

You never found your insurance or registration. The officer tells us you were too drunk to locate the papers. One finds them himself, later.

Both officers thank us repeatedly for calling them. I know it was the right thing to do. But I didn’t enjoy it. I’m human. You’re human. We make mistakes. Nobody got hurt.

This time.

Let’s hope there’s not a next time.

Enjoy this post? Read more of Doug’s writing in his road-tripping novel, Tailwinds Past Florence or check out his video game memoir, The Walkthrough: Insider Tales From a Life in Strategy Guides. And, as always, mailing list subscribers get a free digital copy of the travelogue One Lousy Pirate.

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