Remember that little crash into a manhole I had? Well, apparently, the car didn’t escape unscathed. Today the damage reared its ugly expensive head as I drove the car up into our driveway. Something cracked in the front right wheel assembly, and a nut popped loose. Plus it made a horrible groaning noise and I screamed in fright.

There was no particular reason to scream, but I had been left jumpy from something that had happened only a few minutes earlier. I was at the intersection of two main roads, and there were pedestrians crossing. They had already stopped when they saw me approaching, so I drove on. Just as I cleared where those pedestrians were standing, a red blur of a boy crashed pell-mell into the left rear portion of the car. My jaw agape, I slammed on the brakes and threw the car door open to check if I’d hurt someone.

A man standing at the corner was looking at me. “Andun siya o! Tumakbo!” he told me, and pointed at the boy in red running across the street and onto the sidewalk. He seemed fine and in one piece, and he just kept running away from the scene of the accident.

I closed the car door and drove away. And then came the groaning tire.

I hope that kid didn’t hurt his internal organs from slamming himself into my car. Otherwise, that’s an ugly injury waiting to rear its head.