Melissa's Place

The Karma of the Day

If you ask me if I believe in luck, most days I’d say no. Instead, to explain the inexplicable, seemingly-randomness of things that seem to occur for no reason, I find myself often referring to “karma”.

For instance, yesterday, a little shmuck of a boy with a mop of curly brown hair and a smart-ass grin, who has been the bane of many a teacher’s existence (including, on occasion, my own) came to school with half of one of his front teeth missing. It was bothering him so he was talking about it. When I asked how it had happened, he smiled with what seemed like a hint of pride and said, “I got punched in the face.” It was difficult for me not to grin. Then he added, “playing hockey….” and there was more, “by my own teammate.” And I went straight to the teacher whose life this young man had made miserable for the past three months and she smiled and shook her head and we both said, “karma.”

Well, maybe it was because I had inwardly (and slightly outwardly) gloated over someone else’s misfortune (no matter how much I felt he deserved to be punched by someone some time) but I had a bad day today.

I had a few friction-ful moments with a few of the staff that I work with. And the students were really rowdy and wore me down today. I felt acutely exhausted when Mark picked me up at the end of the day. And I described my day as “not the best”.

Maybe because the day wasn't generally amongst my top ten, I didn’t have high hopes when I took my fourteen year old, diabetic cat to the vet. Her blood glucose level was 20 last time I’d taken her, but today, (if I could have given her a high-five I would have), it was 6! Yay, Frankie. It could have been the time of day and it could have been a false negative due to various other factors, but I truly felt that it was good fortune (dare I say, luck?).

And then I went into the lobby of the vet’s office to pay. I set my cat in her crate down on a bench, glanced out the window at the parking lot and watched an enormous pick-up truck back up quickly (in what he thought was an empty parking lot) directly into the back of my car, smashing the tail light and folding the trunk in.

Perfect. Cat’s on the mend. Car is not.
The universe is in balance.

The man is very nice (to balance the demolished car?) and his dog has just eaten loads of chocolate and has had to have his stomach pumped or some other dog-remedy. So really, if I was to choose between being me or this man, I’d have to pick me.

And I came home and Mark hugged me and served me the dinner he’d prepared.
And after dinner, I lay on the couch with my good fortune purring on my stomach and contemplated, if given the chance, whether I would exchange a fortuitous blood sugar reading for a working tail light.

Frankie’s glad they’re not interchangeable.