Instant Karma's Gonna Get You

I hate karma. Don`t get me wrong. I am a strong believer in that cosmic concept. For those of you not familiar with this East Asian and Buddhist concept it can be summed up as this: take the golden rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) and combine it with the much more recent concept of "What goes around comes around."

Karma is the belief that our actions cause consequences that impact our lives and our next reincarnation. By doing good things, you generated good karma, thus good things happen to you in this life and the next. You do bad things and bad karma is created, hence bad things happen to you and you get reincarnated as a lab rat in a cosmetics lab.

Well, I have my own twist on Karma, that there is a certain proportion of good and bad Karma for every being in the Universe. And over the longhaul, the proportion never changes. Sure, sometimes you may have a string of really great days. But that surplus of good Karma has to be balanced by bad, so it may be followed by a string of bad days. The karmic scales must be balanced.

Well, I had a great weekend. I watched tons of basketball, my bracket was holding up pretty well, I was getting back into shape. I even met a girl, Megan (if you know anything about you will understand how monumentous this is). It seemed everything was going great: she laffed at my jokes, her body language was open, she kept touching my shoulder and thigh, I even got her number.

So when my Monday trial rolled around, I knew that the Universe had some Karmic payback in store for me, and as we all know payback is a b!+(#.

And it was shaping up to be one. I had to deal with an overzealous defense attorney busting my chops to dismiss my case. To further exacerbate the situation, my witness, the victim, was also the sister of the defendant. I was prepared for that, prepared that my witness might not be cooperative, that in all probability she would be difficult. What I was not prepared for was my witness not showing up for court at all (I strongly suspect malfesance on the part of the defendant). My case was collapsing, the defense attorney was breathing down my neck, and the defendant came from a family of criminals whose infamy and reputation was legendary. It seemed the bad karma had arrived.

Well, I was not about to admit defeat (mistake #1, when bad karma hits you, don`t fight it, fighting only generates more bad karma, and if you should actually prevail in the face of bad karma, the scales are even more unbalanced, ensuring a karmic tidal wave is about to go Pompeii on yo`@$$!!!). I scrutinized my case and the facts. And in a brilliant move of legal strategy (if I do say so myself) I changed the theory of the crime, thereby eliminating the need for the victim to testify. I told the defense attorney that I was proceeding to trial without my victim and to get her client ready because we were going to trial. A few minutes later, the defense attorney came back and said that if we could reach some arrangement as to sentence, her client would plead guilty. The defendant blinked. It turned out to be a pretty good day, and it extended my good karma streak to 4 days.

But in the midst of my victory celebration, I forgot that when the Cosmic scales tip too far one way, it must tip back the other way to restore balance to the Universe.

Remember that girl I mentioned, Megan? The one I got the number from? Well the number is fake. Its for a business: Beaver Express. I`m not kidding, its an honest-to-buddha business.

And so the the celestial clockwork thatisthe Universe continues to tick and the Cosmic scales have once again been balanced (at my expense as is often the case). And I realized, I don`t need a girlfriend. I`ll just get a dog. And I will name it Megan...