(I embargoed this blog post until the insurance company cut the check. Now that my car is in the shop, and I’m forced to tool around town in a rented Kia, I’m letting her rip.)

A kid younger than some nice cheese I recently ate rear ended me on my way to my paparazzi interview. It was minor, and it was stupid. (We were at an intersection. He, for unknown reasons, hit the gas before the other cars, including mine, moved.) No one was hurt, and I just wanted to exchange information, so that I could get on with the far more important business of researching my book.

(Loyal blog readers may remember how long it took me to get the interview in the first place. And, let’s face it, a bomb could’ve gone off INSIDE my car, and as long as it was still drivable and I could staunch the bleeding, I would’ve been at that interview on time and with notebook at the ready.)

But while I just wanted to move the whole process along quickly and efficiently, he first had to roll around in some post-teenage angst. In case you haven’t been forced to wade through the hormonal splendor lately, here’s a step-by-step guide:

Step 1:
Kid in waiter attire tells you sob story about being a struggling actor. You try to figure out what that has to do with your wounded bumper while copying down his license plate number.

Step 2:
Kid tells you he has plenty of money, and he’ll just pay you off for the damage. You’re getting bored and start wondering about brain damage. Didn’t he just tell you he was a struggling actor, code for I am so poor, I take gigs just for the craft services truck?

Step 3:
He gets angry that you insist on exchanging insurance information, and getting your bumper fixed. He points out that your car is dirty and, in post-teenage logic, therefore not worth fixing. You continue copying down his information while he calls his mother to tell on you. (Yes, really.)

Step 4:
He tells you he’s from Missouri, and people there don’t do things like this. You smile and point out you’re from Missouri, too. You have no idea what things Midwesterners don’t do. Hit each other’s cars, perhaps? Nonetheless, you continue speaking calmly and politely and using the word “sir” because that IS what Midwesterners do.

Step 5:
Worked up in a lather about the injustice of it all – you’d think somebody hit HIS car – he points out that if you keep on being the meanest most horrible person on earth, you’ll die an old maid. You copy down your own information for him because he has no paper or pencil or, it appears, writing skills. You do this with your wedding ring clearly visible. You think this situation is so absurd it might be funny if your bumper weren’t in need of repair and you didn’t have an interview to go to.

Step 6:
You ask him if he sees any damage to his car. He says he doesn’t care because he, unlike you, is NICE. You’re left on the side of the road to ponder when exactly it was that the meaning of the word “nice” changed to “insolent little twerp?”