I got rear-ended last Monday night. Guy thought he was having a heart attack. Six months after heart surgery and he was back to a pack a day. That's North Carolina for you. My wife and I spent the rest of the night in the hospital, making sure the accident hadn't caused any harm to the critter residing in Barbara's belly. So far so good.

The other driver's insurance company, Beancounters of America, was right polite at first. They set me up with a rental car. Everything was all smiles and light. Then I met my adjuster.

Ricky Ponds. He showed up at my door bright and early Wednesday morning to talk to me about the accident. He taped my statement ("I was sitting at the intersection of Highway 15-501 and Garrett Road and some guy slammed into me") and then talk moved to more interesting areas.

"We're gonna have to total your car," he said.

"There's no way to fix it?" I asked.

He fixed me with a serious stare. "You were driving a 1990 Acura Integra. If a bird took a squat on that car, we'd total it."

Ha ha. Very funny. I got the sense that I wasn't going to be getting much sympathy for the loss of my car. Ricky then turned to the more serious part of the interview.

"How's your wife doing?" he asked. "She's six months pregnant, right?"

"That's right," I said. "As far as we know, everything is alright, but we're still watching things."

"I'm glad she's alright," he said. "And I'm glad the baby is alright." He looked over some papers. "Did they put her on a fetal monitor."

"Yes," I said.

"Pricey bit of equipment, that is," he said. "But we'll cover that and everything else as soon as you sign this form." He plopped a sheet of paper in front of me that read "Scheduled Release" at the top. The schedule was that Beancounters of America would cover anything and everything up to five grand. After that, tough luck.

I told Ricky that I couldn't sign that piece of paper. Not right then. Barbara had a doctor's appointment on Thursday to check things out, and we weren't going to do anything until that check-up.

"Well, that's fine with me," he said. "Just remember that we can't do anything until you sign this form or we come to some other agreement. So you're gonna have to sign sooner or later."

I decided to run a scenario past him.

"What if it turns out that the accident causes Barbara to deliver early? What if the baby has all sorts of problems due to being some fifteen weeks premature? You're going to tell me that five grand will cover that?"

Ricky was ready for that. He had his own scenario.

"What if the baby dies?" he asked.

"That would be horrible!" I exclaimed. "What do you mean 'what if the baby dies?' "

"If the baby dies," he said, "the accident will have save you a lot of money. And that will have to be taken into consideration during any negotiations."

"You're saying that if the baby dies we will save money, so you'll not pay us as much?"

"Did you know that the average child costs his parents almost half a million bucks in current dollars over his lifetime?" Ricky asked me.

"That can't be right," I said. "Most people barely make a million bucks over the course of their lives. And most families have more than one child. How can that work?"

"The biggest chunk is education," he said. "Twelve years of private school at ten grand per."

"I'm not sending my kids to private school," I said.

"You want your child to have every advantage, right?"

"Sure," I said.

"There's no public school in Durham that can match up with a private school," he said.

"I'm not sending any of my kids to private school," I repeated. Ricky moved on.

"Then there's college," he said. "Four years at Harvard at forty grand for tuition board and beer. One hundred sixty thou added to one twenty is two eighty. And we haven't even gotten to clothes, food, a fun car for sweet sixteen and all the trimmings. Add everything in and you come real close to half a million."

"But I wouldn't do any of those things," I said. "I mean, I'll feed and clothe my kid, but there's no way I'm sending him or her to a private school. Or Harvard. And I won't be blowing a wad on a fancy car for a new driver. That's retarded."

"Don't you understand how these things work in front of juries?" he asked. "When it comes to putting a value on a person's life, it doesn't matter what that person would actually do. All that matters is what that person could do. You and your wife have good jobs. You could afford to do all those things. With a little sacrifice, perhaps, but who doesn't sacrifice for their kids? You really don't want to get into a long argument with us. We've got more lawyers than you've got dollars in the bank."

His arguments made sense in a rather disturbing way. But that's not why I asked him to leave. I realized that I was beginning to realistically ponder the possibility of blowing fifteen grand a year to send my kid to Carolina Friends School. Scared the hell out of me. I jumped up out of my seat and ordered him out the door.

I didn't sign the scheduled release.

Yet.

Eight lawyers sent Jon Worley solicitations in the first five days after the accident.