I was already late when I stopped at CVS to buy an umbrella. It was pouring, and somehow I spent fifty dollars on two umbrellas. So now I was late and pissed off.
A woman walked over to me while I was looking at the umbrellas in the front of the store. She already had one in her hand. I figured she’d ducked in to get out of the storm. It was torrential rain and lightning out there.
“Excuse me, I will give you $10 if you give me a ride down the street.”
I told her I couldn’t. I was running late. I also had my son in the car, and she was a stranger. We can’t be getting robbed on a Wednesday morning.
“Okay, thank you,” she said.
A few minutes later, she walked out into the rain.
I went on with my day. Technically.
I’ve been arguing with myself about it ever since, which is a little ridiculous considering she accepted my answer the first time. She didn’t tell me where she needed to go or explain why it was so urgent. She took her ten dollars and walked.
If my son ever calls me and says he got into a stranger’s car because it was raining, I know exactly what’s coming out of my mouth. What the hell were you thinking?
If he calls me and says he’s stuck somewhere in the rain and nobody will help him, I know what’s coming out of my mouth then, too. Nobody? Really, nobody?
I keep giving myself the same defense: I had my son in the car. And I did. I’d make the same decision about the ride. But I started using that perfectly good reason to answer for everything I did after I said no.
Which was nothing.
I told the story to a few friends, my husband and my kids. Everybody went straight to the danger.
Then I told my mom.
She said I could have called her an Uber.
She never would’ve had to get in my car. I hadn’t even thought of it. Not once, in all those retellings.
I don’t know if she would’ve accepted.
I spent fifty dollars on umbrellas that morning. I didn’t think to spend a dime on her.