What Goes Around...

I'm a big believer in what goes around, comes around. Or in other words, karma.

Like, treat people nicely and they'll treat you nicely.

Or, be a jerk and people will be jerky towards you.

Anyway, when I was driving the 2 hours it takes to get to my mom's place, my mind wandered and then put together the perfect example of karma for me. It really made me think and has made me that much more of a believer in treating people how you would want to be treated.

When I was a kid, 13 or so, my sister and I were riding in the car while my mom was driving. There was a car ahead of us with it's trunk door open, a big empty box in the back of it, the flaps flapping in the wind. We were behind this car for quite a while and I was getting irritated with the flapping flaps. I must have been in an irritable mood because I can't, for the life of me, figure out why it would have bothered me so. I clearly remember signing to my sister that I was getting sick of the flapping flaps. But I digress. After a bit, my mom moved into the next lane and we were even with the car and it's flapping box. I waved at the lady driving it and when I got her attention, I pointed at her trunk and told her that her box fell out. She looked all panicked, then quickly turned off into a parking lot. I ducked, giggling and my sister and I laughed about it, never once feeling bad for fooling the lady and wasting her time.

Fast forward some years, and I am married. My husband and I have just bought our first house together and we are in the process of moving from our apartment to the new house. It's approximately an hours drive and we are using both his truck and my jeep to move our things, trip by trip, saving money by not renting a truck or hiring movers. On one of our trips, I have a lovely maple dining table strapped to the roof of my jeep. The legs were unscrewed and safely tucked inside the jeep, filled with boxes and other bits and the table is roped and bungee corded down on top. It belonged to his parents and they gave it to us along with matching chairs.

As we are driving towards our new home, my husband ahead of me and I'm following him, I look in my rear view window and see something flying in the air behind me, the car behind me swerving wildly, barely missing the object as it crashes on the road. I realize, in horror, it's the table! I slam on the brakes and quickly pull to the shoulder, setting the hazard lights and putting the jeep in park. I get out and run to where the table is. Thank goodness traffic was light, people were either at work or at home and the flying table didn't hit anyone. I picked up the table and shoved it inside the jeep, wishing I had put it inside in the first place, seeing as how it fit with no problem.

The lovely maple table now had an ugly crack right in the middle of it. I felt so ashamed to have broken my husband's childhood table-- the same one he grew up eating on and doing homework on! My husband wasn't mad, he is great like that, he doesn't get mad over material things, like the time I accidentally got bleach all over his favorite dark blue shirt, but that's another story. Anyway, we put the table in the basement and there it sat for the next 5 or 6 years. We finally sold it and the chairs in a yard sale to a couple that repaired furniture.

Do you see the karma at work here? I tricked someone into thinking that their box fell out of their car, and in return, something of mine really did fall out (fly out!) of my car. It might have taken over 10 years to come around, but it did and it happened 10 times worse. Isn't that a saying, too? Whatever happens comes back tenfold? Or something like that.

Moral of the story? Be nice. Don't fool people like that. It'll come back and bite you in the butt. Hard.