Retribution

November 13, 2007 | 09:19PM  | maudie dot b - gmail d c | |

I'm not superstitious. Don't particularly believe in fate. Luck, well, if there is such a thing that runs awry of statistics, then for me it's mostly bad. All that being said, though, I do believe in karma - what goes around, comes around.

I'm sitting here in my "sick bed" trying to figure out what stream of bad karma I must have spewed lately. I dig my way out of one of the nastiest bouts of depression to hit in a while, am feeling pretty darn good - even "sunny," if you will, only to have my body rebel and knock me six ways to sunday with the creeping crud.

As I'm am wont to do, I've been analyzing and trying to scope out just what I laid out there that has caused this to come back at me so rudely. And, no, it's not germs, bacteria, exposure to sick people - any of that. Puh. It doesn't work that way, don't you know that?

So, I'm thinking - I've given good tip karma - tipped the waitrons well, tipped the hotel maid when I went to Tulsa a couple of weeks ago, so it can't be that. I've been friendlier to my co-workers (and not an easy thing to do, mind you), so probably not that... my parking karma is still good, haven't had to circle for a spot in a long while anywhere.

Then it hits me. Bingo. I know what it was.

It went like this. No, wait. Let me give a little background, first. You see, I have poor depth perception. Because I have poor depth perception, it is difficult for me to judge just how far another oncoming vehicle is when I'm at an intersection attempting a left turn. Consequently, I tend to get honked at by impatient people behind me.

So, a few weeks ago, I was at an intersection, left turn blinker on, waiting for on-coming traffic to clear sufficiently to satisfy me, when I hear that familiar honnnnnnnk. I look in my rear-view mirror to see the driver of a green pick-up truck giving me enough body language to make it unecessary to ask him to repeat himself.

Usually, I just ignore the assholes, or occassionally I'd take delight in making my turn evvvver so slow - go into ol' lady mode - just to piss 'em off even further. But this time, I got pissed. I snapped. I'd had it with the honkers. I made my turn, moved to the right lane and when he pulled up beside me, my left hand went into the air, middle finger erect, banged it against the window and shouted "Fuck you, goddamit, fuck you asshole, fuck you." Or something like that.

I even surprised myself. Then I felt bad. Then I got paranoid. Surely he made note of my vanity tag. He'd stalk me, hunt me down. No matter where I went, there he'd be, at every left turn, behind me honking, taunting, driving me mad until I'd have to make my way around town by way of right turns only.

Yup. That has to be it. That's why I spent my three day weekend in bed and why I'm now hovering between the ebbing sore throat and the next tide of hacking, hawking, factory of phlegm the next few days are guaranteed to be.

Karma. It's a bitch.