“Expect the unexpected,” Mom said afterward.

Your side had two lanes. You occupied the right. Down the road, to the left, a feeder street fed into yours. It had a Stop sign that people ignored as they barged into the left lane of your side of the road. But, if you stuck to the right, the merge did not affect you. Everyone got home in a timely manner.

You were driving on the right when the light ahead turned. You had all but stopped just ahead of the feeder street and expected the merging car to take the empty lane left of you. It didn’t occur to you that, at two miles per hour, it would drift over the empty lane and T-bone your door.

You pulled over to exchange numbers, dreadfully conscious of your building past the light. You had no time to panic because a pedestrian saw you talking and wanted to know where the Burger King was. You point anywhere else.

The other driver, you learn, has lived in town sixty years. She knows the intersection very well and has driven from the optometrist many, many times.

But, she said, one must expect the unexpected.