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Last week, Mrs. Groovy and I returned home from our daily constitutional and were greeted by two sheriff deputies. It seems a neighbor lost control of her car and visited some carnage upon our fence. Here are some pictures:
Our first and only reaction to the carnage was the health of the driver and any additional passengers who might have been in the car. Were the occupants of the car okay? We didn’t care why it happened. We didn’t care if the driver had insurance. And we didn’t care what it would cost to repair our fence.
Thankfully, the driver and all the other passengers were fine. And aside from a busted headlight and some unsightly dents, the car was fine too.
According to the two deputies, here’s how the assault on our fence went down:
- Our neighbor, a married mother of six, was under the impression that she loaded all her kids into her car so she could run some errands and take the oldest one to a McDonald’s interview.
- But in the confusion of corraling six children into her car, four of which are under 10, she neglected to take a head count. The newborn, who is only three weeks old, wasn’t there. He was presumably resting in his car seat in the driveway, oblivious to his predicament.
- Fortunately, our mom realized the enormity of her slip-up not more than a quarter of a mile from her home. But she panicked nonetheless (who could fault her for that?), and in her quest to get home as quickly as possible, she made a left or a U-turn with way too much speed and bounded off the road onto our property. And that explains why our fence is partially mangled. Panic to get home caused an entry wound, and an exit wound.
- Now that’s a mama bear in action. And her fierce determination to get home wasn’t in vain. Her three-week-old was resting safe and sound in his car seat in the driveway, sleeping like a three-week-old.
The day following the accident, Mrs. Groovy and I went to visit our neighbor to make sure she and her kids—especially the three-week-old—were okay. We also went to visit our neighbor to return some plastic parts from her car’s front end that got dislodged during the accident and to inform her that we wouldn’t be filing a claim with her insurance company—we were going to shoulder the cost of repairing the fence ourselves. Needless to say, our neighbor was very touched by our kindness.
The cost of our magnanimity shouldn’t be much—I’m figuring a couple of days of labor and less than $200 in materials. But what if Mrs. Groovy and I weren’t financially independent and retired? What if Mrs. Groovy and I were living paycheck to paycheck and each of us were working 50 to 60 hours a week? Would we be okay with an out-of-the-blue $200 expense? Would we be okay with a precious weekend lost to fence repair?
And this is what I love most about being financially independent. It makes it so much easier to be nice.
Absent financial independence, our damaged fence would have been a reason to curse humanity. With financial independence, however, our damaged fence was an opportunity to give a neighbor a break, meet a nice family, and, in the case of Mrs. Groovy, tickle the little feet of an adorable three-week-old named Spencer.
Okay, groovy freedomist, that’s all I got. Let me know what you think when you get a chance. Peace.
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