The fall and slow rise of Hubby (get your minds out of the gutter)

So to do this story any justice, I'm going to have to go back to yesterday.

Kim, Mac and I went out to a few stores yesterday afternoon.  Kim and I were looking for some specific things to finish Kim's room.  Mac was along to check out video games (quel surprise!). 

When we parked at one store, the wind was gusting quite a bit and when Kim opened up her door, the door was snatched from her hand by the wind and it whacked into the door of the car parked next to us.  Now, we have always taught the kids to get out of the car with control because we didn't want to be those people that ding your doors without a second thought.  But I knew it was an accident and after admonishing her with "be careful" we moved on.  I did look at the door of the neighboring car and it wasn't too bad.  Now.. admittedly I am sure there are 100 better ways to handle this, but frankly... we just went ahead into the store and shopped.

After we were through with that store and came back out, I headed to the next store down the row (this was an open air shopping center), while Kim and Mac ran our packages out to the car.  They joined me in the next store and trailed behind me a ways whispering between themselves.  I asked if they were whispering about me.. and they said no. But the whispering kept up.  Then Kim moved away from her brother and to the back of the store, while Mac joined me and asked if I was ready to hear some bad news.  Immediately, I have to ask "Is everything okay?"... and he tells me that when they got out to the car, they had found that the car that Kim hit had left, but that they had (apparently) keyed the side of my car before leaving.

I think Kim was afraid of getting yelled at for this happening to the car.  Well.. I can't lie, I was pissed. .but not at her, I was pissed at the people that purposely and wilfully damaged my car.  But I kept my cool and told Mac.. well.. shit happens.  We finished up in that store, the last on our list of places to try and headed back to the car.  When I got to the car, I went around to inspect the passenger side.  Sure enough... not only had they keyed the car with three keys.  But it looked like they also threw theirdoors open hard enough to ding both the passenger door and the sliding door with their rear door.

But what are you going to do?  Karma can be a bitch.  Still I knew I had to come home and tell Paul.  I wasn't sure if we should get the paint damage repaired because we live so close to the coast, I know that there has to be some salt in the air, and therefore corrosive damage might be a concern.

When I told Paul what happened, instead of him telling me what I need to do now... he proceeded to tell me what I should have done then.  I mean.. he went on and on and on about how I should have waited by the car after Kim hit the other car with her door until those people came back, how I should have left a note on their windshield with contact information.  How barring that, what I should have done before leaving was call the cops and at least put in a police report. I sat and listened to him going on and on. Now.. he wasn't yelling, but still.. and when I asked "to what purpose, I have no idea what the car looked like, it's make, a license plate, nothing to give the police?" He cut me off to say that "this is how things should be done".   To show our insurance company that we are not trying to rip them off for a new paint job.  I'm thinking.. hello.. we've had this insurance company for over 20 years now and I can still count the number of claims we've ever had to make on one hand.. I don't think they are suddenly going to think NOW that we are rip off artists.  OY!...  the conversation definitely deteriorated from there.  I ended with  "gee, this really isn't the way I saw this conversation going." and I hung up.  He even went so far at one point as to say that Kimmy should not be allowed to ride in the front seat ever again. LOL... and all this without ever actually sounding angry... I know it sounds like he should have been ranting, but he wasn't.

About 1/2 hour later, he called me back, apologized for not handling that very well.  We managed to talk calmly about the whole thing at that point.  Still not sure what made him go all wierd on me.. but at least we resolved it.

Then, this afternoon I received flowers at my door!!  How nice.. it's been years since I last got flowers (I specifically asked him not to order me any while we were in Germany).  They are so pretty and smell so incredibly good.. I just had to share some pics here about them.  He also wrote the sweetest card to go with them.  You can't really read it in the picture there but it says "Please forgive the fool that truly loves you. Love, Paul"

Mac was all excited to see the flowers that his dad had sent his mom, and he loved the card (and I'm thinking... good.. train the boy early to know he needs to apologize sometimes with flowers, LOL).  The girls get home from school .. see the flowers and ooo and ahhh.. and then they read the card.. and both Kendra and Kim say "wow, Dad really makes it hard for normal mortal boys to compete!".. LOL...  I say.. YAY. raise that standard so my girls never settle for anything less than someone that reminds them of their dad.. that's what I did..and it seems to have worked out for me.