Car Crash Flashback

Oh, the humanity

Home from work and straight to bed, for those 5.15am starts are a killer. Blocking out the sound of the school disco going on next door with a pile of soft furnishings on top of my head, I drift into unconsciousness.

Of COURSE, the phone is going to ring the second you're finally asleep.

"Hello, this is Ricardo from the insurance legal department, I'm ringing about a car crash."

I am awake, my panic button well and truly pressed, for I have not been in a car crash for years, nor have I knowingly been the witness to one. Had a few near misses, mind you. What's the insurance legal department got on me?

"Which car crash is this?" I ask.

"We need to take a few personal details," says Ricardo, clearly reading from a script and he's having problems with the words longer than a single syllable.

"Which car crash is this?" I ask again, safe now in the knowledge that he doesn't even know my name, the only thing he has in front of him is a list of phone numbers of potential marks. 

It's a mystery: I haven't even done anything to get me on the con merchants' list, unless you count that time I helped that Nigerian prince move £8m out of the country, but that was purely legit.

But Ricardo presses on, probably fully aware of what's to come.

"It was an accident you had in England and Wales between now and 2012," he reads, thinking this is adequate explanation. It is not. I am tired. This prick has woken me up from a dream about sexy ghosts.

"Oh, piss off Ricardo."

He does not call back.