I filed the report and didn't expect much. After the winter
holidays, I called the police once but their voice mail-box
was full. Too many accidents must have happened and this was
year-end. I had the patience and low expectation.
2018 came and then the Chinese New Year in mid Feburary. I
came back from the trip and got a message from the police
with the other party's insurance at AllState. (It turned out
we insured with the same company). With that information, I
filed the claim which lasted another month before the guy
finally admitted that he was at fault and his policy was to
pay. AllState asked for witness info twice during this process.
After the car was fixed, I texted Chris to thank him and
asked if I could buy him lunch. "Don't worry about thanking
me. It was the right thing to do," he texted back. "So you
don't want to hear the more exciting stories after the
incident?" "Lol. Thank you. OK."
So we met at the Iranian bakery of his choice. He was young
(early 30s, I think), stout, and about my height. Half
Armenian and half Iranian, he immigrated from Iran when he
was small. So, like me, he is a first-gen immigrant, which
made his sense of citizenship more impressive. According to
him, I could have sued for hit-and-ran damage for three
times the cost of my car repair.
We talked about this and that. The topics ranged from crazy
driving accidents we saw to self-driving cars. He told me
that he was at the moment testing Waymo, the Google and
AutoNation's self-driving car aiming to be the new taxi.
Inevitably, the discussion came to health. I commented
people like him speaking four languages would be immune from
degenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's, at old age. He
worked at rich senior centers before and saw people in their
60s failing while many very active in their 80s.
I was hoping to learn about some exotic food as I didn't
remember having Iranian food before. But he liked pizza. He
looked like he could be much healthier but I refrained from
bring up the subject of diet. Looking back, I probably
should. Instead, I followed him and ordered the same
thing. We said keep-in-touch and I sincerely hope I would
have the chance to help him.
