The Universal Shrug of the Car Door Dent

You get a new car.

And for the first few weeks, you treat it like a newborn.

You park miles away from everybody.

You assess every car beside you.

You check angles.

You inspect neighbouring vehicles for suspiciously large doors.

You see a car with a child seat and immediately think:

Absolutely not. Tiny humans fling doors.

You will happily walk an extra 400 metres through a shopping centre car park because you've found a beautiful isolated spot where nobody can hurt you.

Then one day...

There it is.

The dent.

Tiny.

Round.

Barely noticeable to anybody else.

But you know.

That was not there yesterday.

And now it's all you can see.

But Here’s What I Don’t Understand

Somebody did it.

Somewhere, at some point, another human opened their car door.

Donk.

They heard it.

Surely they heard it.

They probably even looked.

And then apparently thought:

Ah well.

And went to do their groceries.

When did we collectively decide this was okay?

Because if you were sitting at a cafe and accidentally knocked somebody's phone off the table, you wouldn't just watch it hit the concrete and say:

“Yeah, phones get scratches.”

Then walk away.

If you bumped somebody's trolley and sent their eggs flying across Woolies, you probably wouldn't shrug and continue towards the deli.

But cars?

Apparently once you enter a car park, normal social rules become more of a loose suggestion.

Car Parks Change People

Perfectly reasonable humans enter them every day.

People who hold doors open for strangers.

People who say thank you to waiters.

People who return things they've borrowed.

Then they enter a car park and suddenly it's:

Every person for themselves.

Trolleys abandoned wherever the spirit moves them.

Cars parked across lines.

People driving the wrong way down one-way lanes while looking at you like you're the problem.

Someone waiting six minutes for a car to reverse out because the space is twelve metres closer to the entrance.

And, of course...

The door dent.

The tiny suburban hit-and-run nobody reports.

Then You Become That Person

Once you've found the first dent, something changes.

You start inspecting the doors of every car parked beside you.

Was it you?

You look at paint colours.

Door heights.

Possible impact trajectories.

Suddenly you're less person popping into Woolies for milk and more CSI: Westfield Car Park.

You're crouching slightly beside your car thinking:

That looks suspiciously like a Mitsubishi-sized dent.

You have absolutely no forensic qualifications.

But emotionally?

You have solved the case.

Eventually, You Have to Let Go

Because the first dent is devastating.

The second is annoying.

By number four, you sort of look at it and think:

Well, we're living now.

Maybe they're little suburban safari scars.

Proof your car went out into the world.

It visited shopping centres.

School car parks.

Supermarkets.

Office buildings.

It survived.

Mostly.

And perhaps that's the only way to stay sane.

Because unless you're prepared to park approximately three suburbs away from every destination for the rest of your life, eventually somebody is going to open a door into your car.

I just have one request.

If you hear the donk...

Could we maybe bring back the tiny bit of humanity where you don't simply shrug and wander into Coles?

Because my car may eventually collect a few scars.

But I'd still quite like to know who gave them to it.