Integrity

[Karen] Integrity in a fellow human being is often a hard value to come by. When you do chance upon it, it is quite refreshing.

On Thursday, October 23rd I had to go out of town. I received a witness subpoena broke into one of my houses, stole copper pipes and fortunately, was caught in the act as he exited and was making his way down the street. No, this is not where the integrity was found.

After I left court, I met with my property manager. We talked about business and future plans. After a couple hours, it was time for me to leave. I pulled out of my space on the corner, drove through the intersection and 20 feet into the next block, it happened. A man and his passenger were pulling out of a space and hit me. It was as simple as that. I was stunned. I bought the car about two months before and it was immaculate. His SUV already looked as though it was held together with spit.

What happened afterwords has been very interesting. I took photos, waited for police and talked with my property manager who had come to my aid. The man who hit me, Chris, was apologetic but also said he was in a hurry. He read between the lines when I said that I wanted to file a report. I said "I don't live here and you are not going to disappear on me". Not today. Maybe he shouldn't have been in such a hurry in the first place.

I will try to keep this short but we were there for at least 2 hours. Apparently, the police were looking for someone because we saw about 20 police cars passing at various rates of speed but they all said the same thing, not now. During this time, we all began to talk. I had calmed down, the man realized I am getting my police report if it takes all night and he resigned to the fact that he had no choice. We began to talk about a home repair business that he and his passenger/partner were trying to get off the ground. Although he doesn't know it, I own properties. My property manager handles about 150 properties. The more he talked, the more we were impressed by his ambition and honesty.

The police finally arrived. The first thing that Chris said was "It was all my fault". As I mentioned, his car isn't a good specimen so he had to really insist that there was no fresh damage on his own car. After the police finished their report, we continued to talk. Eventually, Chris suggested that I should get an estimate for the work. I don't want to report an accident no matter who caused it so I was thrilled. Before we left, he had my managers business card. He still has no idea what it meant for her to hand it to him. She had listened to him and made up her own mind. We all parted company and I headed for the turnpike.

I was busy on Friday and Saturday and did not have time to get estimates. Chris had already called me twice on Saturday to find out the price. I had three estimates by Monday afternoon and they ranged from $950 to $2950. Big difference and I needed a tie breaker. Chris called me for the estimate twice on Tuesday to explain that he would be sending me some money on Friday and needed to know the cost of the damage to see where he stood financially. I explained the huge gap and that I was going out on Wednesday to a fourth shop. The tie breaker came out at $967. We had a winner.

A friend of mine was very angry. Why was I working so hard to get estimates? This guy had better not complain. Didn't I have any thing better to do? Was he going to take months to pay off the debt? Well?

Chris called me on Friday October 31st to clarify my name and address because he was sending a money order for $300. He would pay in three installments and the worst case scenario would be that he would be finished by November 28th. I say worst case because he said that if he gets any home improvement jobs between then and the end of November, he would take his share it give it straight to me. I can live with that.

Okay, I didn't get the money order on Monday. What is taking so long? People who know the situation are asking. Could you be wrong? You should have received it if he mailed it on Friday.

Chris called on Monday November 3rd to clarify my name again. He called me on November 6th to find out if the money was received. I hadn't checked my box. He called me again on the 6th and 7th. I hadn't checked my box.

I finally checked my box on the 8th and there it was. He had mailed it on the 3rd.

I called Chris to let him know that it was received.

Was there every really a doubt

Nah!

Integrity