An $800 Lesson Learned.

In the summer of 1990 I was involved in a road rage altercation that was serious enough to have the police involved. I was married to Bonnie and Stephanie was just a few weeks old when on one Saturday the three of us headed up to the Square One Shopping Mall in Mississauga. It seemed like every weekend back when I was married to Bonnie included a trip to the mall. I sure don't miss those days.

We had just left our Courtney Club condo, I was driving and Stephanie was sitting in her car seat behind Bonnie as we drove north on Hurontario Street.

Within ten seconds I noticed out of the corner of my eye a Cadillac that was also approaching the street from an apartment building entrance. Both Bonnie and I gasped as the driver who was driving far too fast stopped abruptly just before he too turned north onto Hurontario. Bonnie had her heart in her mouth as she thought for sure he was going to T-bone the side of our car right where our daughter was sitting.

At the next traffic light we were both stopped side-by-side at The Queensway. I casually got out of my car and walked over to the Cadillac as the young driver rolled down his window halfway. “What the fuck kind of stunt was that you pulled back there? We thought you were going to hit us you fuck’n asshole?” I screamed at him.

He smiled at me, “You have a nice day” he said. He was smirking while he rolled up his window.

I became even more incensed and with my left fist I punched his window before heading back to my car. Instantly the window completely shattered as my fist went right through the glass. There were hundreds of tiny square glass pieces everywhere inside the car. There were two very attractive and very well-endowed young women sitting in the back of the Cadillac. Both of them had gotten out of the car to shake out the glass pieces from their low cut sundresses they were both wearing. One of the girls was actually picking out glass from her cleavage.

It is a visual that I will never forget.

It was very sunny and hot that day and there was a woman selling books on the corner shouting out for someone to call the cops.

"A lunatic is running loose on the street." she kept yelling loudly.

That lunatic would be me.

Within a minute a police cruiser arrived. The traffic jam behind our two cars now stretched south as far as I could see. The Queensway and Hurontario is a very busy intersection especially on Saturdays. After explaining to the cop what happened, the cop decided that he would be charging me with mischief. He also told me that I was lucky he wasn’t charging me with assault. Years ago the cop said he had been involved in a similar incident and the driver had actually died after being struck in the head by an enraged driver who had also punched out a window.

The cop then decided that since there were no injuries if both me and the Cadillac driver could resolve our issues then he would not be charging me with any offence. I simply told the driver I was sorry and that I would pay for the window that I had shattered. I also apologized to the two young women who had just arrived from Brazil that morning and could not understand or speak English. The driver was happy with my apology and my offer to fix his window. We all carried on with our day after going our separate ways. Within a week I showed up at the garage and paid the $800 bill to replace the window.

It was another classic case of no harm no foul although I did have a nasty cut on the knuckles of my left hand. I am right handed and I still can’t believe that I punched out the window with my wrong hand. I also consider myself very lucky that the three occupants inside the Cadillac were all wearing sunglasses when the window shattered.

I was just another heat of the moment memory along with another expensive lesson learned and I have never punched out a window again.