This story begins on a thursday evening. I started this interesting journey (strangely enough) at fort edmonton park. For those of you who are completely unaware as to what that is, its a heritage site in the city that is tucked beneath a freeway overpass. Its also insanely creepy.
I was there for a work function and took off as soon as we had finished all our necessary teamwork building. I made may way through the creepy park which, at this point, was a literal ghost town and I was actually beginning to feel kind of afraid. My intention was to stop by a friend's show, say hi, and go home to my warm bed.
Instead, what happened was pretty interesting, to say the least. I ended up getting into a mild fender-bender on the way to my friend's show and it was at this point when the realization of the shittiness of the situation was fully about to sink in as soon as we had pulled over and I was rummaging through my glove box to find all my documents to exchange info.
Since the whole accident was 100% due to my negligence, I of course exited my car and was incredibly apologetic. Nine times out of ten this type of incident results in at the worst, rage, and at the very least, fake acceptance. However, this gentleman was actually genuine in that he told me that it was totally okay and that accidents are accidents for a reason -- because they are completely unintentional.
He even went as far as to inform me that my car was leaking something vicious and that I should probably find a place to leave it before it stalls in the middle of the road. Not only did he offer me correct and useful advice, but he also topped off the mysterious (and necessary) fluid that was oozing out of my car and then followed me to my friend's house where I proceeded to abandon my car. Sad face.
I felt like I had to make it up to this person in some way for being so understanding and compassionate. This kind of thing never happens in real life and I felt I needed to express my gratitude. So I asked him what he was doing at that moment. He surprisingly said he wasn't busy, so I asked him if I could take him out for a beer. And since I had already had prior engagements with a friend, this was going to work out swimmingly.
So we show up at the empress (a local watering hole), purchase a round of shots and beers, shake hands with friends, make new friends, and proceeded to have amazing conversation. I learned that my new friend had moved here 8 years ago from bc, was in graphic design, and lived really close to where I work. I know it doesn't seem like a lot of information given the amount of time we hung out, but beers can make you forget things.
To top off the night, my new buddy so kindly asked if I needed a ride home. I obviously took him up on his offer, and since then, a chance occurrence that would usually enrage and stress people out turned into making a new friend.
So, in case you were unable to pick up on the obvious moral of this story, its that there is really no real reason to be so upset over such trivial things. Life is too short to give such a massive shit about minor things like why boys are ignoring you, or why your hair looks gross or why you decided to smash back a five guys burger before you squeezed into your bridesmaid dress.
People are inherently nice and mean well. If everyone just took a step back to chill the fuck out and not take life so seriously all the time, we would look forward to getting into accidents.
That's my $1.
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