Good Karma Boomerang

Today's rant was supposed to be all about our new microwave but in light of today's events I think a change is in order.

Karma is a cool thing when it works in your favor. I will never be confused with a saint,so when I do some good I may need to bank it for later. Lord knows I'll call on those reserves more than I'd like to.

Today was not a withdrawal or a deposit though. Today we more of a dividend or interest payment.
This morning I got off the train near my office and stopped by the grocery store (Harris Teeter, the official work grocery store of Nobody Likes A Jerk). As I went to check out I realized my club card (and my government ID card it was attached to) were missing. So here I am having to pay an extra 20 cents on my yogurt and having to set talk my way into my office, all before my first cup of coffee!

On my way in I texted Mrs. Bloggerman and she said she didn't see it laying around the house. Crap. Hopefully its in my car. If it's on the train I'll never see it again.

On I went with my day and then at about 11am I got an email from somebody at another government agency in town saying that he found my badge on his train seat and he wanted to get it back to me. Are you kidding me?  How lucky is that? It reminds me of finding Jordan's cell phone (last year about this time)...another story about a fellow human (me) going out of my way to do the right thing.

This guy, Brian (pictured...next to me of course!), and I met this afternoon during lunch near his office. He handed back the ID, thumb drive, and Harris Teeter savings card and I handed him a bright orange water bottle I had laying around the office. Sounds like a fair trade to me.

Help Comes in Threes

I’m not sure why things come in sets of three. What makes that number so good? Why not sets of four or five or ten? But everything seems to come in three’s (or multiples thereof), like deaths, beer, and toilet paper.

Now those of you who really know me (which coincidently is my entire reading audience) know that I’m not the world’s most cheery man and I have been known to give a finger or two to an idiot who’s driving too slow in front of me. But I do some good now and again and this morning I got to help three different people in three different ways.

The day started off normally enough. I got up and hauled my butt into the city as the sun was rising. I hit the gym and took off on a run up through Dupont and Woodley Park and up towards Glover Park and Georgetown. After a big left hand turn at the National Cathedral I saw a homeless lady pulling her shopping cart up Wisconsin Ave with quite a bit of effort. When I got closer I saw that she was stuck on something (the sidewalk). That is to say her cart was stuck, not her, or else that was a serious wad of Hubba Bubba! I probably could have just jogged right by her but decided to go to the front of the cart and lift it over the bump and she was on her way. No thank you received but that’s ok.

A little farther on down in Georgetown (by the newly renovated Social Safeway) I saw a bag floating, fairly violently around the sidewalk. At first I thought it was just a gust of wind. As I got a little closer I saw there was something in the bag. A crazed croissant,a psycho donut, or was it something else? If you chose "c" you are correct. That something else turned out to be a small, dark-colored bird who had ventured into the bag for its creamy, err, crummy center but could fight its way out. I held down the end with my foot (I wasn't really going to pick it up...there wasn't any donut crumbs left and the bird itself was too small to really make a meal of). After a few moments the little bugger figured which end was out and took off. While he didn't poop on me he didn't thank me either.

After a well needed shower I headed into the office and what do I spy as I'm walking in but a first timer, on crutches that is. You can always spot the first timers because they take small timid steps instead of using the "lean and swing" method that us veterans roll with. Well I do the right thing and hold the door for her. As she waddles over to the security desk she plants a crutch wrong and begins to topple over. A security guard and I catch her and sit her down in a chair. She's obviously a little shaken, a little stirred but mostly embarrassed. I helped her back up and to her office (in the farthest point in the building don't ya know). This time I got a "thanks" but still not an actual thank you.

And for all of this good karma I banked...nothing to report yet but I'm working on it.

Cell Phones, eBay, and Karma

The other day when I got back from work, the dog was watching TV. And while I still haven’t figured out exactly how she managed to work the remote, I noticed she was watching “My Name is Earl”. I can’t say I’ve actually sat down and watched more then a minute or two since the show launched a few years ago, but the basic premise is that this guy wins the lottery and then gets hit by a car and he thinks its Karma getting back at him for being such a “bad” person over the years. So in order to change his cosmic output he sets out to use the lottery winnings to do “good” and make amends for his years of bad deeds.

Well I don’t invest a whole lot of belief in karma but I don’t wholly dismiss it either. Case in point: Monday. On the walk from my car to the train on Monday morning, I noticed something shiny on the curb and picked up a very nice Blackberry that somebody had dropped. Can you image loosing your cell phone? Now take that and multiply it a few times because you’ve lost your e-mail too. I know how naked I would feel if I had lost mine. So instead of just leaving it with the station manager and hoping it found it’s way to the main lost and found, I used my deductive reasoning (the owner’s facebook account) to figure out who’s phone it was and his e-mail address. Later in the day he got back to me to thank me for finding it (of course he was panicked all day) and we set up some time to meet and get it back to him.

Well that same day 2 items I had up on the old eBay (not to be confused with Old Bay seasoning which is much tastier) were finishing up on the selling block and were not getting much interest all week. Well when I checked back a few minutes before the close of the auction each had risen more then three-fold! Karma? Maybe but perhaps people were really interested in my Washington Nationals fleece blanket. Yeah...must have been karma.