The snail in the bottle and the ute in the car park

Australians head towards water on the weekends. This means: parking can be terrible if it's a beach ceremony.

This one time, I was in a carpark near Pittwater in the Northern Beaches, and there was only one spot I could see. It looked a little small. But the more I circled around that car park, the bigger that spot looked -- although it was actually the same size. So, I awkwardly tried to angle into it.

Now, I'm pretty squarely in the category of "shit driver" (unless we're playing Mario Kart). But I've never had an accident yet (depending on your definition). And what I found with this spot is I only realized the physical impossibility halfway in. So, with the clock ticking down to ceremony, I straightened my wheels, reversed -- and scraped my side mirror all the way down the side of the ute next to me.

When I first touched that ute, of course I felt it. I could hear it. But going forward didn't seem much better than going back, once my side mirror was a few centimetres into his front door, and I guess I made the call that reversing would do less damage.

I'd never been in this situation before, honestly (though I've been in one since then!). I was unsure what to do. It crossed my mind that I could just drive off and say, "It was like that when I got here, mum," but guilt took over: "How would you feel if you came back to your car and it looked like that?" So, I left my phone number and an apology on a piece of paper behind the windscreen wipers.

I got back into my car, and -- ironically -- a good spot opens up at just that moment. So, I grab it, haul my ass over to the ceremony site, and try to smile and be professional and keep worries from distracting me, and all that part goes fine.

One day later, I get a call. I've been dreading this call, and I'm wondering if someone is going to be abusing me over the line. But he's very nice about it -- "These things happen" -- and he's very appreciative that I left a note. Since all the side panels had to be replaced, the damage exceeded what I earned from the wedding, but maybe the philosophical way to look at it is that it’s just the law of averages -- the cost of doing business.

I'm reminded of a famous torts case -- a snail in a soft drink bottle. Should the manufacturers be penalised because just one decomposing snail slipped into a ginger beer, or should they get an award because they'd produced millions of bottles that were completely snail-free?

I scraped one ute in ten years. Is that a failure -- or a pretty good run rate?