Get Good Karma

I heard an interesting radio commercial in the car yesterday as my kids and I were parked on the interstate due to road construction on a Sunday evening. The announcer asked me if I was a victim of bad Karma. After taking an account of my surroundings: the exhaust being emitted from the hooptie-mobile in front of me, the mangy truck driver staring down at me from his semi to my right, and my kids who were having a screeching contest in the backseat, I answered aloud with a hearty, "Yep!"

Apparently, the remedy for having bad Karma is to visit this website called getgoodkarma.org. Yes, I'm serious, as being on the "bad side of the universe" is no laughing matter. I made a mental note of this as traffic finally began to move again and I promised the kids ice cream if they would stop trying to make mommy's ears bleed. At the next exit we stopped at the second McDonalds of the day for hot fudge sundaes. I turned off the car for about seven minutes and when I tried to restart it, guess what? Yep, my bad Karma had inflicted itself on my car battery.

I called my sister. Apparently bad Karma is also contagious or maybe hereditary. She and I are in a neck and neck race of who's life sucks the worst. I pulled ahead yesterday. All I could do was laugh. It was already nine o'clock and the kids and I had been on the road since 3:30. If you've never traveled with small children, let me just describe it as the third ring of hell. The only bright side was that the sundaes bought me twenty minutes of peace and quiet to figure out how the crap jumper cables work. Several fire sparks, a chocolate painted two-year old and forty five minutes later we were back on the road to home.

What should've been a four hour drive ended as a seven and a half hour trail of tears. After hauling the kids to bed and toting all of our junk back into the house, I got online. I visited getgoodkarma.org. I now hold the keys to cosmic freedom. Guess what was number one on the checklist?

#1 Send money. Haha.

I skipped to number two.

#2 Charity work. I think I've got this one covered. I mean, I work at a church and therefore my eight to five is practically all charity time. We're not exactly on the Forbes 500,000 list if you know what I mean. Adding to my do-gooder list, I do occasionally divvy up goldfish and animal crackers to a class of 30 screaming 4 year olds on Sunday mornings and sing songs about "The Arky Arky" and "The Walls of Jericho". I also have a handful of websites that I create, manage, and host for some non-profit ventures of other do-gooders, so that should count for something. And if the Karma thing was all about charity, my sister should be on the A-List of the universe – she spends her eight to five feeding hungry children for crying out loud!

Since #2 shouldn't be the problem, I checked out 3. Register to Vote. What does voting have to do with the universe's system of checks and balances? According to the website – a lot. "Civic action goes a long way", so it says. But I am registered to vote, even if there aren't any candidates out there I really want to put my vote behind. Hmm… I'd better save that bunny trail for another blog.

Well, maybe I should've just sent money. Too bad my bad Karma already sucked my bank account dry.