Last Friday, I carpooled with friends to hike El Cajon Mountain, and when I got back, I saw that someone had bashed the windshield of my car.

At first I thought it was a freak accident and looked around for whatever had hit my car — rocks, road debris, whatever — but I couldn’t find anything amiss. The windshield had been hit dead center, and in the middle of the rings of shattered glass was a long rectangular depression, so possibly a beam of wood or a baseball bat was the culprit, neither of which were to be found.

An intentional hit, then.

No one except my hiking friends know where I keep my car while hiking, and they were with me the entire time, so it couldn’t have been someone I knew, and in any case, I don’t know many people who would do such a thing, let alone to me. The few people I know who are possibly capable of such a thing all live far from me, by at least an hour’s drive, and are completely out of my life for that very reason.

That said, mine was the only car hit in a rather packed place, so the only conclusion I could make was that I was the victim of a random act of violence. Lucky me!

My first reaction was disbelief. It seemed surreal somehow, like I was imagining things. When there’s no reasonable explanation for something, the reality can be very difficult to accept.

One of my hiking friends helped me clear the driver’s seat of glass, and after some discussion about what I would do next, I drove home as usual, except with my head bobbing to and fro as I looked around the web of cracked glass to see my way.

I called my insurance. I called the windshield replacement company they recommended to me. I made all the proper arrangements.

And I told some friends that I wouldn’t be able to watch Rent with them the next day after all — because I needed my money to buy a new windshield. This is not an expense I can afford right now, but what else can one do?

Through it all, surprisingly, I maintained a pretty good mood and made a few jokes about it. Why get angry? I felt whoever broke my windshield was probably angry enough for the both of us, so I figure, why not let them deal with that toxic emotion all by themselves? I hoped, at least, that by taking their anger out on my windshield they were able to find some peace.

Besides, I’d had a small crack in that windshield for some time anyway. I had put off getting a replacement because of the cost, but now I actually had a great reason to finally get that done.

Still … being on the receiving end of a random act of violence is no fun, especially knowing that the person probably got away with it; they will probably never get caught for it.

So I did the only thing I could do.

I hoped they would get painfully explosive diarrhea and a horrible all-over body rash.

Seems only fair, right?

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