This Didn't Bother Me

Are some days fated?  I believe not.  My buddy de la semaine Diderot through his foil Jacques did not.  But today was just one of those dumb days.   My daughter and I had a regular appointment down on Xindong Lu.   We were reading along in the back of an Uber, plodding along the airport expressway when our fat young driver hit the brakes and screeched to a halt, slamming into the car in front of him. 

A Beijing veteran, my first impulse had me spun around looking behind us, first and foremost to make sure we weren’t going to be rear-ended ourselves.  I was relieved to see the person behind us stop safely.  “You alright?” I asked my daughter.  She was.  I was.  The driver was.   The other driver seemed well enough, inspecting his car within seconds, snapping photos. 

Mind you, we couldn’t have been going more than twenty, thirty miles an hour when the deceleration started.  This is the wonderful thing about Beijing.  No on ever gets going very fast and so damage is usually mitigated.  In my mind a Maharishi-like mantra began:  “Thank God I wasn’t driving, thank God I wasn’t driving.” 

The drivers would necessarily be here photographing and debating things for the next few hours.  We considered the four-lane highway we were in the middle of and, raising my hand to stop the next car in line we headed for the shoulder.  A few cabs passed by before and opportunistic stranger pulled up and asked where we were heading.  I told him and hopped in.  He wanted eighty.  I told him he’d be happy with fifty and not to be greedy.  But in the end I just slipped him a hundred. 

And walking upstairs to our appointment we noticed we were still, in spite of it all, rather early.  The secretary, whom I’ve developed a friendly rapport with over the last few months, fiddled with her computer for a while and frowned.  “I’m sorry, but for some reason, you don’t have an appointment this week.”  “Huh?”  “You wanna come back tomorrow?” 

I can get mad quickly over little things in China.  But somehow this didn't bother me any more than the accident.  We went out to the street, caught a cab and headed straight back home. On the way we both looked and sure enough, the driver and his new friend were still there on the side of the road, with their phones, next to all the inbound traffic.  A dumb day, for sure.  But plenty to be thankful for, regardless.