She was eighteen, free-wheeling down the road in her new pre-owned Honda, cell phone plastered to her right ear, loving the carefree life Iraqis can only dream of. That’s when she hit me. She didn’t lay a millimeter of rubber. Didn’t swerve a smidgen. Didn’t zig. Didn’t zag. From 60 feet I could see the whites of her eyes, frozen in panic. But the eyes and their brain were disconnected and, like a runaway Amtrack bound to its rails, the little sedan torpedoed the front end of my perfectly restored 1982 RX7. T-bone city. The entire bumper assembly in the street like a grotesque body part. It was a scene deserving of tears. Sure enough, the teenager was convulsing and hyperventilating as she babbled incessantly on the cell now growing out of her left ear. At least she was ambidextrous with something, if not the car. Of course, the cop charged me. Said I was in her lane. “That’s true, officer, but the van was letting me turn left and I could see about 100 feet and nothing was coming so I eased out but she was coming so fast and she had a turn lane to swerve into and I wasn’t halfway across her lane and she could have braked a lot harder and she wasn’t paying attention or she could have easily missed me and…..” Sorry pal. Open and shut. The intersection was loaded with eyewitnesses but no need. Open and shut. Guilty. Only later did it occur to me there was an ear witness. Whoever was on the other end of the cell must have heard the entire thing. Could have gone something like this: “Yeah, I gotta study but Danny’s comin’ over to see the car. Can’t wait til…..OH, MY GOD. WATCH OUT….THERE’S A CAR…THERE’S A CAR……THERE’S A CAR….WHAT’LL I DO….WHAT’LL I DO??? EEEEEEEEE!!! (crunch). Nothing is what she did. The only thing she was moving was her mouth which, when engaged, evidently disabled all her other bodily functions. On the bright side, nobody was hurt, the assistant DA dismissed the case with proof my insurance paid for the Honda’s face-lift and my 7’s now in reconstructive surgery. It’s just money. And somewhere out there, there’s a young blonde, gaily zipping along, chatting away on her cell, eyes seeing but unseeing, secure in the knowledge that it wasn’t her fault.