Sitting at a four way stop and Blam! Right in front of me two cars demonstrate my favorite law of physics with both of them trying to occupy the same intersection space at the same time. No injuries, just enough of an accident to scare the drivers and leave broken turn signal plastic all over the road.

After several minutes, it became clear they were not planning to move their vehicles as they looked around and sat back in their cars.  That is when it happened again Blam!  This time it was from my rig.  After making sure no one was hurt we pull off into the parking lot.

We won’t go into details, affixing blame is such an ugly game and my attorney has advised me to exercise my right to remain silent.  But I can tell you the other driver, we’ll call her Sally was not happy.  The rig…  you guessed it, no damage…  Sally’s Mercedes, well not so much.

Sally and I exchanged insurance information and all seemed amiable, that was until, her husband showed up.  We’ll call him Bob.  Bob started out polite enough, making sure no one was hurt and then took on a subtle change as he looked at me, the rig and the tattoo. I clearly matched the red neck, trailer trash profile in Bob’s mind, although the iPhone threw him.  As I said we had exchanged all the insurance information and Bob wanted more.  “Is there another phone number for you”, “Is that your home number”, “Let me see your driver’s license”,  “I think we should file a police report”.

The police were across the parking lot for the other accident, which until the officer arrived, still sat in the intersection.  Bob pulled the officer over to us and began the inquiry. The police officer explained no report was required since no one was hurt and we had exchanged information.  It was at that point Bob asked to have the officer take a report anyway, since he “didn’t know me”.  This meant we would all be hanging around for another hour.  After a little persuasion Bob backed down but not before hearing the story one more time and taking the officer’s picture.  If you ever want to raise an eyebrow, point a phone camera at a police officer and click away.  Not the way to win friends and influence people.

That would have been a cap to a bad day but as Bob and Sally left, the officer turned to me, smiled and said, “I’ve read your blog and that looked like a really cool trip”.  So we talked a few minutes about fishing at Haines, Alaska before the grizzly ran us off, work on the tattoo and a few other high points of the adventure.  Still having to go talk with the other accident folks, the police officer wished me well and I climbed back into the rig.

Accidents are never any fun and thank goodness no one was hurt.  In the middle of all this mess, finding someone who has read our Arctic Circle Adventure and enjoyed the stories, makes for a pretty cool silver lining.  Hats off to the great job the Poulsbo police force does everyday.  It has to be the most thankless job, somebody’s always mad at you for their mistake.