You are what you are, I saw what I saw. Karma's your master and you're the bitch. -Joss Stone

I know that whole theory about karma coming to get you is probably a bit overplayed but there are times when I really want to believe in it. I find it super endearing that misguided people, who think that a small amount of charm makes up for their idiot behavior, will pay for all their wrong doings. That perhaps the big, bad karma monster (who I visualize as someone threateningly beautiful, like Kate Beckinsale) will thunder down from the sky to smite those who have been awful little brats. That the world is right and fair enough to wage a war on those who betray us. That they will be condemned for their sinister behavior because Kate Beckinsale, the ever powerful (and obviously gorgeous) karma monster, is one bitch you can't charm.

But no, friends. All is not fair in love and war. Kate Beckinsale isn't swooping in to lay down the law, rather unfortunately. Because I'm sure we are all painfully aware, there are some very crotchety, cunning and probably charming idiots that are walking among us remarkably unscathed. They mistreat and betray whomever they deem fit because they can get away with it. Because a minute amount of charm and old school manners apparently merits forgiveness for such disgusting behavior.

I wish I knew the inner workings of the universe so that I could say to them, "Don't worry, your day is coming. Your revenge does await you and I'll have a chilled glass of Jameson when it does." All those years of walking all over people, telling lies and changing your story to suit you, diseasing minds, biding time and dodging bullets have finally caught up with you and the debonair of goddamn John Fitzgerald Kennedy couldn't get you out of this.

What a monumentally glorious thought.

 

But this is what happened when you didn't want to visit and confront the past: the past starts visiting and confronting you. -Bret Easton Ellis

When my sister was seven, she had this cute little pink bike with tassels, sparkles, a bell and a basket. Even at seven years old, my sister was incredibly independent, spunky and more than capable to hold her own. She was smart and inquisitive, and like most seven year old little girls, had a love affair with her Barbies.

One summer day, she took said bike on a ride through our gated then neighborhood, her Barbies in tow. I mean, that's what a bike basket is for after all, isn't it? To tote the aforementioned Barbies to all the other little girls' houses so you can play Malibu Hotel or Cheerleading Try Outs or whatever?

So, she's trying to navigate herself through the neighborhood with all these Barbies overloaded in her basket when a mailbox sneaks up on her. She doesn't have the time to swerve, so she plummets basket first into the mailbox, flies off her pretty pink bike and lands on the sidewalk. Chin first.

No big deal, right? Kids fall off their bikes all the time, get stitches, blah blah blah. What makes this story so different is what happened afterward. To this day, my sister says that she can barely remember it but a man on a motorcycle picked her up. My sister was barely coherent, a bloody mess of a seven year old (she ended up getting something like eight stitches in her chin), unable to explain where she lived or give directions. And yet somehow, this guy turned up at my mom's house.

A burly man on a motorcycle with a little boy on the back, presumably his son, in a gated community, where you had to give the name, address and phone number of anyone you wanted to visit. It's not like you could just sneak into this place. No one knew who he was, had never seen him (or his child) before or after. And what's even weirder is when he dropped my sister off, my mom took her in her arms and rushed her to my godfather, who was a paramedic. My mom left the front door open with the hero stranger standing on the front porch because obviously, she was shaken up. While my godfather took care of my sister, my mom went back to the front door to find the porch empty. No man, no motorcycle, no loud engine tearing down the street. Just my sister's bike at the edge of the driveway.

An angel, my hippie mom swears. And he was never seen by anyone again.

Whatever this man's biological origins, I find his behavior incredibly commendable. If that man, or renegade angel, had some built up bad karma, I think that sunny afternoon when he picked up my sister and brought her home to safety cleared it all.

 

If you're a really mean person, you're going to come back as a fly and eat poop. -Kurt Kobain

When I was barely a year old, I had this really, really bad habit of getting out of my shoes, socks and car seat before my mom even backed out of the driveway. I quickly earned the nickname "Houdini" and although it's a cute childhood story, it drove my mother insane. And proved mildly dangerous.

One day, my mom was parked in the garage, bringing in groceries with the help of my sister (who was about seven) and I was asleep in the car seat. In a car. In a garage.

So here's my mom, trying to swiftly carry in groceries while I'm safely tucked away, asleep in a car seat. The doorbell rings and my mom instructs my sister to continue bringing in the groceries while she answers the door. When she does, she's greeted by the UPS man, holding a baby like a football, a frantic expression on his face.

Friends, I think we all know who that baby was. And listen, I narrowly escaped death! Thank goodness for that sweet, worried little UPS man. Or else, I may not be here to grace the world and interweb with my awesomeness.

But listen, as much as I'm sure you would all love to hear all of my childhood memories, that's not what this is about. The thing is that people are bad. People can be just so crotchety and dubious and out to misguide people. Mislead people and just make the world a vicious place full of awful, unformidable bottom dwellers. There are bad people in this world who just manipulate and wander around doing whatever they want to whomever they want. Without any kind of remorse or punishment.

Now I'm not saying that only bad people exist and that they should all be chastised and deliberately alienated by society. But listen, I'm not a perfect person. In fact, I work really, really hard to be a good person because I fight a lot of genetic predisposition and sordid history. But I wake up, I go to work, I socialize and I follow the rules. Not because I have to or because it's right, but because I want to. Sure, I've been bad. We all have. And the few but absolutely colossal mistakes I've made, believe me, I own and am paying for. Guilt is decaying and sometimes it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Jameson helps.

But I try. I work at being a good person. I read books about marriage and children (even though I don't have any) and life because I need it. I want it. I want to be good. I want to be wholesome. I don't want to get wrecked by Kate Beckinsale! I don't want to hurt people. Ever.

Moral of the Crazy: It's just that I know so, so many people who have to be in just an utter karma crisis. What I don't understand is how they get there. What gives them the right to break the law, cheat on their girlfriends, steal peoples innocence, put their hands on another person or tell lies and manipulate others? It just doesn't seem fair and it seems like karma only comes back to bite a select few of them. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. And sometimes the bad people get away with murder.

Let's be real: Karma can't be a real thing because there are far too many tool bags walking around like they own the place. And if it is real, it's not getting all the right people. I guess it just baffles me how people are okay with being terrible, how they can just accept it as their fate. My wish for the world and its inhabitants is that we all turn the other cheek when provoked, that we all treat others with the respect we seek from them and that we strive everyday to be better people rather than tear others down.

And let karma, if it should exist, take care of those who misbehave.

 

Oh Lestat, you deserved everything that's ever happened to you. You better not die. You might actually go to hell. -Anne Rice