Darn Karma

Today has been one of “those” days.  You know the ones where nothing seems to go right?  Yeah, that’s apparently been scheduled for today.

For me it started around 5 o’clock this morning when Jinx, our mirage cat, jumped up on the bed demanding my attention.  Other than Vince, no one has ever seen Jinx in real life since she scurries under the bed and hides whenever she even thinks someone might be approaching the front door.  To prove we have a second cat, we have to show evidence, which is either photo documentation – or her vet bills.

Nevertheless, at 5 o’clock in the morning, she’s pretty bold.  I think she really wanted me to get out of bed to feed her, but she has been around the block a time or two and knew that wouldn’t be happening.  So she was willing to settle for a little petting.  Problem is, at 5 o’clock in the morning, I’m not functional.  No amount of bumping her head against my hand or purring loudly into my one good ear was going to work on me.  So eventually she gave up and curled up at the bottom of the bed to catch a few winks herself.

It was at this precise moment I turned over, kicked off the covers and unintentionally punted Jinx off the bed.  I felt so bad I couldn’t fall back asleep – for about 2.3 seconds, anyway.

Karma got me back a short time later, though.  I managed to get up on time, get showered without slipping on the tiles and I even applied my makeup without spilling foundation down the front of my jacket or poking myself in the eye with my mascara wand. 

No, it was the hairspray that did me in.  Since it was not a scheduled hair-washing day, hairspray application  is mandatory.  Only I evidently hadn’t cleaned the sprayer of the bottle thoroughly the last time I cleaned it.  Because instead of a fine mist settling softly all over my hair, I got a direct spritz of spray precisely in the middle of my left eye.  Believe me when I say don’t try this at home, kids; hairspray in your eye stings!

Sigh. 

Fortunately, the rest of the morning seemed to flow smoothly without any further mishaps, so I figured that I was paid back in full. Take that, karma!

Yeah. Right.  Not so fast there, Skippy.

So did you know that karma payback is transferable?  Seems to be.  There I was sitting in my office at lunchtime when my coworker walked in the door asking me if I’d seen what she had done.  Alas, I hadn’t.  She was walking into the building, talking on her cell phone with her purse slung over one shoulder, holding an open glass bottle of some fancy juice in the other hand.  She was also trying to open the door to enter the office.  In the midst of all this, her sunglasses start slipping off the top of her head – and she didn’t  want to stop her conversation or alert the person she was talking to that she can’t walk and chew gum at the same time (as it were), so she reaches up to grab her sunglasses with her other hand.  The one holding the open bottle of juice.  Which she then proceeds to dump all over her head, sunglasses, necklace and dress.

As I’m retelling this story, I’m SO regretting that I didn’t look out the window so I could’ve actually witnessed this spectacle.  Darn.

Anyway, I tried not to laugh – but it was a little tough looking at her with her sticky orange-flavored hair and the big juice splotch on her shoulder.  She cleaned herself off the best she could and went upstairs to her office to continue her afternoon. 

Shortly thereafter, however, she came back downstairs toting her big purse, the bigger-than-she-is backpack she carries every day and, because that’s evidently not enough storage for all her stuff, a third bag.  The bottle of juice was mysteriously absent.  She was rushing out the door on her way to collect her youngest son from school who either fell or was playing in a big mud puddle.  She needed to hose him off and put him in fresh clothes before bringing him back to school.

As she walked out the door, karma apparently figured she’d had enough, so it leapt back onto me. 

Right about then I decided I needed to hydrate myself and walked into our copy room where our water machine is.  Naturally, the bottle was empty as the last person to fill up their glass hadn’t replaced it.

(Um, that last person may or may not have been me.  But I'm not admitting to it since you can't prove it.)

Sighing in frustration, (um, mostly because no one else had felt the need to hydrate themselves and replace the bottle of water), I put down my cup and started to pull the empty bottle off the base.  Only it was stuck.  So I tried twisting it with one hand while holding the top piece of plastic down on top of the machine.  I was trying to be slow and methodical so as not to lose control of the bottle, but sure enough, the bottle suddenly popped free of the machine and smacked me right in the nose!  

I dropped the empty bottle and stood there in stunned silence for a moment as my nose started throbbing and my eyes started watering.  Fortunately, no blood was spurting out of my schnoz, so I determined that a trip to the emergency room was not warranted.

Even more fortunately, no one had witnessed this embarrassing little event, so that was a relief and I figured I was in the clear.  Of course, writing about it makes it public  knowledge, but whatever.  It’s one thing to talk about your embarrassing moments.  It’s quite another when those acts are witnessed by others who then get to spin the tale into something even more monumentally embarrassing.

Several hours have passed since the nose-bopping incident and nothing else has happened.  Maybe karma has moved on?  Knock on wood.  But, hey, I think I’ve learned my lesson.  Sorry, Jinky-Jinx.  Didn’t mean to punt you off the bed this morning.

And tomorrow morning when Jinx tries to jump on the bed for a little attention?  Yeah, she’s not gonna get that far since I’m planning to close the bedroom door tonight.

Take that, karma!