crack habit

A couple of months ago, on my way to San Diego on the 405, a rock came-aflyin' and cracked my windshield. After a string of expletives and hours of pent up rage, I finally examined the crack. It was small. A few short, thin lines that look almost like an asterisk. Virtually invisible.

A friend told me that it would cost about $50 to get the crack filled, to prevent it from spreading beyond repair, at which point the only remedy would be to replace the entire windshield. I promptly resolved to ignore the crack and save my money for more important things, like parking tickets. I convinced myself that the spreading crack is but an urban legend concocted by windshield repairers.

Day after day, that asterisk crowded the corner of my eye. On occasion, it would catch the glint of the sun. Sometimes, it would interrupt the trajectory of a trickle of water. I couldn't tell whether it was spreading. But it was there, taunting and threatening me with all that it could be.

In my line of work, an asterisk is a red flag. It means that inches down the page, there will be fine print capable of transforming a seeming bargain into an expensive quagmire. Only fools ignore asterisks, and they do so at their own peril. That's not legend; it's reality.

And yet, I habitually ignore the cracks and asterisks in my life. I close my eyes, cross my fingers, turn on the TV, go online, run errands. I do so in spite of proven experience that most cracks, no matter how seemingly insignificant, do in fact spread and cause more damage and require more extensive repair, forgiveness, reconciliation than ones treated with immediate attention. Sure, God is capable of replacing entire windshields, but that kind of repair is neither cheap nor painless. Disregard and wishful thinking can be very, very costly.

It cost $60 to get that crack filled. Included in the price was some liquid resin, a few minutes of UV light and a "lifetime guarantee" against any future spread. There's no guarantee that another rock won't come my way, and there will always be a visible mark where the crack once was (a scar, if you will). But this particular asterisk has lost its potency; its legend will never become reality.