Oh no she didn't...

When I first moved back to the glorious metropolis that is Indianapolis, I got a part-time job cocktailing at a particularly well-established bar/nightclub. As my one-year anniversary there rapidly approaches, I can't help but think back on all the crazy, twisted things I've seen while carrying a tray or manning a beer tub.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I couldn't make up better stories than I actually leave with every night. Seriously. I'm talking about the most "oh no she didn't"..."he'll regret that tomorrow"..."is that even legal" moments imaginable.

A few examples:

I watched a girl try to do a straddle-slide down a two-story staircase railing...with no underwear on.

I had a customer open a tab with her husband's credit card...and then go home with a guy she just met...who didn't speak English.

I saw a fella so drunk and confused that when he got in a bar fight, he broke a beer bottle over his own head.

Pretty unbelievable, right?

Typically, after I witness an incident like the ones I've described, I file it away in the "Stories to bring up in an easy-going crowd who likes to laugh" file and think of it no more. A couple nights ago, though, I saw something truly outrageous happen. It was so shocking that I haven't been able to get it off my mind. In fact, I believe I've actually been learning from it.

Picture this:

I'm being escorted to my car (parked in the back) by a security guard. We're laughing and talking about the evening when we hear a loud crash-bang-boom-like noise from across the lot.

"Holy crap," he says.

I look up.

"Holy crap," I say.

I blink a couple times, just to be sure I'm not hallucinating. When nothing changes, I commence laughing hysterically. It seems that someone driving a Chevy Cavalier...circa 1995...has managed to back COMPLETELY THROUGH the brick wall of a building next door.

I immediately have a few questions.

First, how did she (the driver was female...males readers please reserve judgment) not see a brick wall behind her?

Second, how fast was she going that she put a Cavalier through that brick wall? I mean, we're not talking about a Land Rover, here.

Third, why is she driving away?

That's right. This chick put a mid-level-sedan sized hole in the local shoe shop, and I was watching her attempt to drive off as if nothing occurred. She would have gotten away, too, if it weren't for a police officer heroically throwing his body in front of her vehicle.

As I drove away from the scene of the blunder, I couldn't help but sympathize with the poor girl. Hadn't I made a few big, embarrassing, messy mistakes of my own? Of course, they didn't involve the destruction of property, but they were nonetheless damaging. And hadn't I occasionally run away from dealing with those mistakes?

Over the next couple days, my mind reeked with the staleness of so many screw-ups swept under the bed. I thought about the men I shouldn't have dated, the words I shouldn't have said, and the times I didn't do my best...all the minor bungles and major missteps in my past. How many of them had I made right? How many had I even owned up to?

I began to see the Cavalier Calamity less like a good story to tell over a round of beers and more like a metaphor for my life and the lives of my girlfriends, whose countless tales-of-oops I've heard over the years: We all back our proverbial car through the figurative brick wall once in a while...and most of the time, we turn it into a hit-and-run.

Why? I'm not sure. It could be any of a million reasons (we're embarrassed, we're afraid, we're indignant and convinced of our own innocence). The point is, we do it...a lot. We make big, ugly messes and then refuse to acknowledge them...refuse to clean them up...refuse to learn from them. Is it any surprise that we statistically change friends every 3-4 years (and spouses every 7)? Our relationships get filled to the brim with all the messes we make and never clean up. Is it surprising that we repeat the same mistakes over and over? It's impossible to to learn from them if we always leave the scene of the accident.

Our lives are not so different from the crowded parking lot behind my bar, so many of us clamoring for a better spot, edging each other out, cutting each other off, taking up more space than we should...and of course, parking in the handicapped zone (I mean, who hasn't). In our rush to get in (or out) all of us inevitably do things we wish we hadn't. What separates the good drivers from the Cavalier drivers of the world is refusing to drive on by like nothing happened; it's standing up and taking ownership of even our most mortifying mistakes.

It's letting go of a man who's bringing us down. It's holding onto a friend who we run the risk of losing. It's seeking forgiveness. It's swallowing our pride. It's hard, and it's embarrassing, and it's scary.

But it's better.

You and I may never knock down any permanent structures, but we will do some damage in our lifetime. It's part of being human. The question is, will we face it and fix it, or will we drive away?