This came in the mail the other day. There was no postmark, but I can only hope it was mailed before Friday the 13th.

I borrowed my housemate's car to go get more sausage for the jambalaya, because I realized that two sausages don't feed five people. I got rock-star parking, the space right across from the door, next to the bike rack. I ran in, grabbed the sausage (they had chicken andouille prepackaged, so I didn't even have to wait), got in the express line and was back in the car in less than three minutes, congratulating myself on avoiding the rush-hour grocery crowds.

Then I forgot I wasn't driving a VW.

I was being so careful, looking out the back, not hitting any pedestrians or other cars -- when somebody called my attention to the front right corner of the car. "You broke my bike!" said a man who had just emerged from the store. He just said it, he wasn't excited or anything. He had a sexy accent.

It hadn't occurred to me, used as I am to cars that turn on a dime, that the front end of a car could move _sideways_ when all I was doing was reversing. I'd bent the back wheel of this guy's bike.

So we loaded the bike into the car, and I drove us to the bike shop, which was mercifully still open. They said they could fix the bike in fifteen minutes. I left the biker with my name, phone number, and email address.

I feel like such a shmuck. I've had such good luck with my bike -- no accidents and no theft or vandalism. And then I get in a car and wreck somebody else's bike.

As I was leaving the bike shop, I saw a cop getting ready to write a ticket -- I'd parked in a resident-only spot. I ran toward the car and the cop meandered on his way. I guess it really is my lucky day after all.