A few night ago, some friends and I were eating dinner on the patio of a restaurant. We had a great view of the parking lot and could see cars drive in and out of the lot. Pretty soon, a woman in a brand new Mustang pulled up and gingerly backed into a space. The space was tight, but the car fit okay, although one could only assume she was sweating as she arduously turned around to make sure that she didn’t hit anything. She got out of her car, yelled at some other folks on the patio, jumped over the railing and sat down with them. You could tell she was oh so proud of her new car.
The car next to her left, and a little Civic pulled into the open space. It was a tight fit, but the Civic fit into the space nicely. The passenger got out of the car as the table next to me focused in on the event. “Oh, he’s gonna hit your car [with his door],” screamed one of the slightly inebriated women at the table. She continued, “Oooooooh, he hit your car. I could see it. He hit your car.” (This comment was like a statement repeated endlessly.) The owner of the Mustang popped up, jumped over the railing and started trotting out to her car.
She was screaming, “You hit my car! You hit my car.” The man replied, “No sir, no I did not.”
He stood back in the parking lot as she went up to her car. She felt the entire side of the car, seemingly hoping to find a nick or scratch. But she found nothing. The man stood there with his arms crossed just waiting for this woman to discover what he knew all along: that her car was just fine.
The owner informed all of us who were watching this unfold that he didn’t really hit her car. Whew! The drama was intense [sarcasm]. She straightened up and walked back to her table (jumping over the railing again, of course), and turned to us. “I would have to kick his a** if he touched my car.” And we all nodded and laughed.
Of course, I didn’t laugh because that was funny…I laughed because it was sad. I can honestly say that I pitied that woman. You could see that so much of her value was tied up in a $20k car: a nice car, but still, a car. Of course, she wouldn’t have stood a chance against the man if they got into a fight, but still she felt like she had to do so much to protect her stuff. She had elevated her car so much that she worshipped its existence.
The sad thing is that one day she will wash her car and discover a key scratch or a ding in the door. She’ll be dejected. It’s inevitable.
It makes me wonder about all of the things in my life that I have elevated to a point so high that I worship them. It’s sad–because it’s just stuff.