I may be old and soft, but I’m not an old softie! By Dave Hamby
I overheard one of my daughters describing me to one of her friends as “an old softie” the other day. I bit my lower lip to keep it from trembling as I entered the room so that she wouldn’t know that she hurt my feelings.
“An old softie!” Not exactly the macho image the ordinary guy wants to think of himself as. After thirty years of working in a body shop I’d like to believe I’m one of those “crush the beer-can on your forehead” kind of guys. Truth is, my daughter is probably closer to reality with her perception than I am with mine.
Here’s a case in point. Last Friday, as I was going to pickup Grandpa to take him with me, my middle daughter Kate and her friend to the ballpark, we were in an auto accident. We ‘d been stopped for a couple of minutes waiting for a break in the traffic before pulling out on the Interstate frontage road, when “WHAM!” this guy runs right into the back of my new PT Cruiser. It just scared the bejeebers out of the three of us. The bill to his insurance company is going to read something like; Fix bumper $300, Shampoo interior $600, Fix three big outie dents in roof $1,000.
Needless to say I got really, really angry. It always ticks me off when I get startled like that, and the prospect of my Cruiser being mashed only made things worse. Besides, anger is really the only appropriate emotion for a man to display. I’m pretty sure I had steam coming out of my ears when I climbed out of my car to greet the guy who just ruined my whole day.
There he was, a well-dressed young fellow who preempted me with, “I’m so very sorry. Is everyone OK?”
Well I had a few things I wanted to tell him. Instead, what I heard coming out of my mouth was, “We’re fine. Are you alright?” (Not very macho there.) We pulled into the Cracker Barrel parking lot and exchanged insurance information. He apologized to me a couple more times, and as I was leaving I heard myself saying, “Hey, it’s OK. It’s only a car, I can get it fixed.” As I repeat this I’m thinking to myself, “What a big softie.” I swear I think thet "he's gellin" commercial was produced after this happened.
Now amazingly, this is the fourth auto accident I’ve been in since I sold my body shop almost four years ago. The last one was when this teenage girl made an abrupt turn in front of me as I was traveling down that road that runs by the Mall. Kate was with me then too. My Z28 convertible was really mangled. When the young lady got out of her car and saw all of the damage, she burst into tears. I did the only thing a father of three daughters could do, I put my arm around her and patted her on the back and said, “That’s OK, don’t worry. Everything will be all right.” No wonder my kids think I’m a big softie.
My kids just don’t get to see me when I’m being a real macho guy. I was alone the accident before that one.
I had just left my house and was going about 30 miles-per-hour when this big, dumb doe steps right out in front of my car. I jammed on my brakes and was actually able to stop before I hit the stupid animal, but just barely. The deer got so shook up that she lost her footing as she tried to scramble away and ended up sitting on the hood of my Z28. When she ran away there was this big Bambi butt print in the middle of a $700 hood.
I got out of my car and jumped up and down, cussed real loud, and even tried to chunk rocks at the critter. I would have hit her if I could, but she was too far away and my arm just isn’t as good as it used to be. If my kids could have seen me then they would have been real proud, me kicking, fussing, sputtering and turning real red. I was really macho. I frightened the heck out of a whole bunch of deer.
I guess being a softie isn’t all that bad. I do have a great family. If I had a choice between being Vin Diesel or being me, I’d choose me. At least most of the time.
This article originally appeared in the Round Rock Leader. It’s available for reprint.