Karma Blows

I don't know what I did, but karma is sticking its tongue out at me. I was on the freeway after work last night, during rush hour, behind a mini-van and sandwiched between two semi-trucks. When the mini-van spit an eight-inch piece of tire shred right out into the air.

I thought to myself, "Hmmm... rubber is squishy and bouncy! This is noooo prob..." SMACK!

Right into the corner of the hood of my car, my baby. No biggie when I saw the hood flapping in the breeze, I figured the little tire chunk just unlatched the hood on one side. After pulling over, there is a damn dent in the hood along with a broken latch. Not a big dent, not a hugely disgusting dent, just a dent large enough to look ugly and piss me off.

After getting estimates all day, estimates that range between five- and six-hundred dollars, I am wondering what I did to piss off karma so much this week:

Is it because I jokingly referred to an old lady as "The Cryptkeeper?" This is not an untruth; she does look like the Cryptkeeper, I'm not saying it to be mean, it's just... true.

Is it because I didn't really jump to save my mother as she fell down the mezzanine stairs at the Capitol Theatre during the intermission of Spamalot Sunday night? I didn't want her to pull me down too, not to mention I did finaly help her off the ground after she slammed her head into a pole. (I was also in a slight daze from the hotness of Sir Gallahad or "Dennis.")

Is it because I borrowed someone else's wine, the wine about which I wrote last week?

I got the hood latch fixed this evening by the fine folks at TeraFlex, who even used a ratchet thing and helped with installation. Still doesn't fix the dent in the hood, but at least I'm saved from said hood catching air and slamming up into the windshield.

My perfect car that has always been perfect isn't quite so perfect anymore. Like so many things in life, it's just an annoyance that adds a little color the the monotony of the day. I'm reminded of a saying I like to tell myself whenever I'm feeling sad and blue:

"If you light a man a fire, he'll be warm for a day but if you light a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."