I’ve always found karma to be a funny principal. I’m not religious, I believe we are responsible for our own destiny, etc. But I’ve seen too many examples of “what goes around, comes around” to discredit karma.
A good example of this was the root of my fear of spiders. It’s relevant to note, that I am a hick. I grew up in a town of 1200 people, I spent most of my life up to my ears in some form of animal fecal matter, I rode horses, I milked cows, and in my spare time I would often go scrape up roadkill to give it a “proper burial.” Short version, very little in nature creeped me out.
My grandmother, on the other hand, was LESS than fond of Spiders. My mother once nearly caused her to drive off the road, after planting a fake spider over my grandmother’s sun visor in the car… NOT recommend. Another time, Gramma found a spider in the house. She legit put an upside-down bowl or bucket over it, put something on top to make SURE it would “bust loose” and closed the door to that room until my grandfather came home to dispose of it.
So for my sister’s fourth birthday, we had a big shindig at our house. It was an interesting day, filled with purple EVERYTHING (my sister’s favorite color at the time) and bubble gum (because at 4, she was allowed to chew gum, and was VERY excited about it…) There were also trick candles on the cake. Friends, please don’t ever do this to your four year old. They aren’t old enough to process it, and it will end in tears, which will also make the big sister almost have a stroke trying to console said four year old when everyone is laughing.
Anyway, this birthday party was an outside BBQ. Also, important to note, there was a GIANT barn spider on our porch. When I say giant, I mean REALLY FLIPPIN HUGE. You could see it’s eyelashes, for God’s sake. It took everything in my gramma’s power to make herself walk onto the porch to get into the house. I found this hysterical, for some reason. Far be it from me to pass up an opportunity to make someone’s life a living hell… So as my gramma was standing in the driveway, I was doing the “ooohhhhh grammmmmmmaaaaaa. Look at the spiderrrrrrrrrr. Loook at himmmmmmm. He’s so big and scarrrryyyyyyyyy” thing. I walked up to the web, with my finger out, saying “Grammmmmma, I’m gonna pick him uppppppppp.” It was as it hit that last “p” sound in “uppppppppp,” that the spider FLEW AT MY FACE! He catapulted off of his web, claws out, teeth gnashing, heading directly for my jugular. In about three steps I went from the porch, to about 800 yards out into the yard.
My grandmother found the strength to get over her arachnophobia long enough to DOUBLE OVER, tears pouring down her face, laughing and choking out “that is exacccctly what you get, Heather Dawn!!!” I’m so glad she was amused, because I was officially scarred for life. I haven’t looked at spiders the same way since! But to be fair, she was right… that’s exactly what I get. Karma is a b*tch, and she looks JUST like a softball sized barn spider!