do you have an incident?

I am completing the final steps in the painful process of becoming an 'adult' in the 'real world.' After graduating college last April, my parents cut the apron strings but I managed to stay on the family cell phone plan and car insurance. Over Christmas I got my own phone plan, and now I am trying to figure out this car insurance business.

Perhaps this could warrant an entire entry by itself, but I had a pretty bad car accident back in August. It was my fault, naturally, since my life was ALREADY in shambles at that point and I just needed one more thing to make me give up entirely. Without all the depressing details, there were over $7,000 in damages to my car, not to mention the car of the lady who hit me. I had some pretty bad burns from the airbag, and a newfound fear of yielding on a left turn. Total nightmare.

(AND...the week after I got my car back from the repair shop, a frighteningly old woman backed into me in the Costco parking lot.)

The only thing worse than going through the hell that is a car wreck is dealing with the humiliating aftermath forcing you to relive the whole ordeal as you obtain car insurance quotes (as if traffic school wasn't punishment enough).

"Do you have an incident?" they ask me.

Yes, yes I do.