had a noticeable door ding on the rear passenger’s door. Of course, I
always decline the extra insurance, and I didn’t remember seeing the
dent the day before, so I thought I was screwed. I thought that I’d go
ahead and hang on to the car for a week and see if I could figure
something out. I left much later than I wanted to, around 12:30 P.M.
on a Thursday, and got into Austin around 6:30.
Fast-forward to Saturday evening at 5:00 P.M., an hour before I
wanted to get to the Hyatt for the event with Joe and Dr. Hew Len. I
had spent too much time worrying about the dent and what I was going
to do. I was at a shopping center in North Austin trying to find a
disposable digital camera, with no luck.When I got back into my car to
drive back to my hotel, it was getting dark and there was a steady rain.
I stopped at a place preparing to merge onto a busy street, when I felt a
sudden smack. I had been rear-ended. Immediately, I was thinking, Oh
shit, first the door ding, then this. I have a dinner in an hour that I’ve
already paid for and I need time to shower and change. On top of
everything, this was a high-traffic area, even on a Saturday evening. I
got out of the HHR after first grabbing the rental registration
information. A young black man met me in the street.“My tires,” he
said.“I’ve got to get new tires for my car. I couldn’t get it stopped.” Not
a good thing to tell a lawyer, I thought. I said,“Crap, this is a rental
car!”We walked to the back of the HHR to survey the damage.We
both looked and were stunned.“There’s no damage,” the fellow said.
“There’s no damage. Praise Jesus!” Being Jewish, I thought that was
amusing, but I looked myself and couldn’t believe it. Incredibly, he was
right—there was no damage.This car was apparently made with
collapsible plastic. I knew that I was going to be sore, but I didn’t want
to stick around and make a big deal of this. I wanted to get back to my
hotel.We shook hands and went our separate ways. I was able to make
the dinner and sit at Joe and Nerissa’s table.
I did some serious Ho’oponopono-ing about what to do about the
door ding. I put off doing anything else about it until a couple of hours
before I was supposed to return the car without penalty. I looked in the84 Zero Limitsccc_zero_077-112_evid.qxd 5/4/07 2:21 PM Page 84