Karma for the Day

Granted this post should've come out on Wednesday, but I got busy... VERY busy and didn't get to sleep until 2am Thursday morning (with a wakeup time of 5:30am...).

Thursday's my full-day for classes and I had a meeting to go to last night, plus my car went in for servicing today, so I'm finally getting a "break" right now to continue my consistently inconsistent posts...

Where was I?

Oh! Karma.

On Wednesday afternoon, I did my "good karma" deed for the day. Now, I need to go off on a bit of tangent here (I do it all the time, but for some reason I feel obligated to warn anyone reading this today that I'm going to speak tangentially).

Tangentially. My big word for the day. Look it up. Actually, don't --I probably misused it. (if I did, use misuse as my big word instead).

That wasn't my tangent --crap. This is. As a Christian, "karma" isn't supposed to play a part in life. "We" don't believe in "karma," but we believe that every good deed deserves another and what good you do will be repaid in kind.

Karma's a whole lot easier to say.... And I'm feeling lazy.

So, back to my Wednesday and where this whole karma thing comes in to play.

I had class in the afternoon and when I sat down at my station in the lab, there was a set of headphones and a very cool/expensive-looking MP3 player sitting there looking quite lonely. I asked the guy at the next station if he saw who'd been sitting there and he didn't know.

So here was a very cool/expensive-looking MP3 player in my hands.

I turned it in at the security desk.

And no one came back to the lab to look for it. Hopefully, they checked at the front desk and did get it back. As tempting as it would be to "own" a very cool/expensive-looking MP3 player, I know how I'd feel if something like that happened to me. Total bummer, so I did my good karma for the day...

Now don't think I immediately start thinking I'm invincible or anything because I'm going to get what's due to me after my good deed. Oh no! I don't think you actually can or should expect anything. If nothing happens, it means nothing bad happened. If something happens, well..... good?

Not for me on Wednesday.

It had been fairly sunny out when I got to school and parked 'lo those many blocks away. But hey, it was nice out so the walk was good for me. Except that at 5 at night, it was pouring rain very, very hard and it was honestly a difficult walk back to the car.

And, just before the spot where I cross the road, there came a large delivery truck.

Who introduced me to the rather large ocean-like puddle right in front of me.

I was beyond wet in my thin silk jacket. Oh yes, I honestly felt like the back of my neck got splashed from that puddle which no longer seemed to exist.

The girl with the umbrella 10 feet behind me didn't fare much better, except the 'Hoser'-shaped outline where she was blocked from the tsunami effect.

I got to my car, and sat for a while as the de-fogger tried valiantly to "de-fog" the car as my body heat (what little remained) and the liquid layer around me didn't mix with the car interior.

20 minutes later, we pulled out to go home.

"Home" was an understatement as I came in, kissed my wife and children, changed out of my damp clothes, swallowed a few spoonfuls of dinner, and ran out the front door to the honking van. I'd "volunteered" to help paint a friend's new condo. There were 6 of us going in the van and I was supposed to be the 6th one picked up. I wasn't, I was first, so 45 minutes later we finally got to the condo.

It was after 9pm when the pizza finally arrived, giving me my second full meal of the day. (the first being 2 slices of toast 12 hours earlier. Dinner at home didn't count as I didn't make a dent in the food on my plate.)

Before we ate, though, the guy who owns the place wanted to move a few things so we all had somewhere to eat the pizza. As he moved things, he held a full tin of paint.

Which he then accidently dumped on my jacket.

No, it wasn't the same jacket from the tsunami. I'd hung that up to dry at home. Ths was my super-nice rian jacket which in an instant turned from black to some greyish-green mizture matching his kitchen walls.

I laughed. I mean, no one's expecting something like that to happen, so all I could do was... laugh!

He grabbed my jackety and took it to the bathtud to try and wash as much of the paint out as possible. And he did a great job as it actually went back to its original black.

But he hung it up to dry (WHA???) and I didn't realize that until we left a few hours later.

So, no jacket for the couple-block walk back to the van to go home. And it was raining harder than it was before....

I was very, very wet.

Imagine how I'd've felt if I thought my good karma deed meant everything would be going my way...

Except for all that water that went my way, that is.