So in all my excitement over “the most wonderful time of the year” for me, I forgot to mention my traffic altercation.

Friday afternoon, my boss came in around 3 and said, “Why don’t you go home early?” Seriously? Early Halloween treat!! Score! So I packed up my junk and happily headed out to Sammy for the commute. I had dinner plans later in the evening, but I decided that I would just burn up some time perusing the books at a Barnes and Noble near where I was heading rather than trudge all the way home. Any excuse to look at books, right?

Traffic wasn’t too bad on the Beltway, but I reached the exit to the main thoroughfare I needed to get where I was going and things started looking grim. Apparently, I’m not the only one who got to bail on work early that day, fo’ sho’.

So traffic is snooching along at a sluggish pace with spurts of total traffic light stoppage. At one particularly long red light, I kind of zone out a bit, staring out the front window while listening to a podcast. Then I feel Sammy lurch forward. I immediately think that I’ve somehow become so distracted that I’ve let my foot slip from the brake a bit. I strengthen my pressure on the brake, but I happen to glance into my rearview mirror as I’m doing so.

Behind me, there’s a woman sitting in her car, gesturing at me with a “homeless crazy” kind of frenetic energy. She then gets out of her car and starts marching over to my driver’s side window. That’s when I realize that the lurch was not my error; apparently, Sammy just got bumper-kissed.

I roll down my window, prepared to say something like, “I don’t think you hit me hard enough to get that worked up,” but before I can say a word, she starts yelling at me!

“Didn’t you see me?”

Um. Didn’t I see you what? Hit me?

So I put Sammy in park and turn on his hazards. The light is still red, but I want to be cautious. “Homeless Crazy” is still yelling, “Didn’t you see me?” in a huff that indicates she truly believes that I was somehow at fault for being one of the four cars ahead of her, stupidly stopped at a red light.

So I turn to look her in the eyes and state as clearly and obviously as possible, “You. Hit. Me.”

She suddenly just stops talking to me and turns to go look at her car. Not mine. Hers. I follow, look at her bumper and then mine. Nothing. No dents. No scratches. Not even rubber marks from her bumper caps. Nothing. I didn’t expect there to be anything. It really was the most incidental of taps. Definitely nothing worth the hassle of having to deal with her.

I look up, prepared to hear her ask her ridiculous question again, and I see that she’s gotten back into her car! I decide that this is probably for the best since I don’t really feel like dealing with her anymore and having her kill my Halloween buzz, so I do the same.

Only, as I’m putting Sammy back into drive and getting ready to go, I glance again into my rearview mirror. “Homeless Crazy” woman is snapping a photo of the back of my car before zipping into the next lane and passing me!

WHATHAFU?

Now, believe it or not, I’m actually quite used to seeing people snap photos of Sammy’s derriere. I have two items on his bumper and trunk that people find particularly amusing. In fact, the other day I nearly backed over a teenager who thought that it would be a good idea to squat down to snap a photo right before I started to back out of a parking spot. Don’t they even pretend to teach common sense in schools anymore?

I don’t think “Homeless Crazy” was at all interested in Sammy’s baubles, though. I’m not sure exactly what she was up to, but you can bet that I immediately called my insurance company. I refuse to have some nutter try to scam me or Sammy. As I explained the altercation, my insurance agent actually started to laugh. Good sign, right? So she made a note in my file and promised that if anyone contacted them regarding an “accident” involving my car, they would let me know.

So, there you go. I continued on to Barnes and Noble, where I roamed about longer than I anticipated (surprising, I’m sure) and bought a book of favorite scary stories as listed by famous modern-day scary story authors. Not a bad ending to this tale, no?

And hopefully, this really is the end of it. I’ll be sure to let you know if it’s not…