What Comes Around: Karma, Version Two

"Want me to get that"?

"Um, yes. But could you start with her?" I pointed to my neighbors house.

"Sure thing". He went to work, plowing out my neighbor, then coming over and pulling me out of my drive as well as scraping it out for me, then off he went, galloping away, my knight in a shining green pick-up truck.

Gwen, my neighbor, came over with a card for me. "Why do you keep doing things for me?" She asked as I folded the $25 that was in the card back into her hand.

"I can't take your money. What I'm doing for you will come back to me someday, really. It may have already".


---
 
Last week our region was buried by a snow storm, rendering to a near complete halt the counties surrounding me. I was also incapacitated--not just by the fact that my car was quite literally buried in my drive, but because my rib was out of place.

(Digression: I have this thing called "Slipping Rib Syndrome". It's real, people. While sometimes I feel compelled to look around my doctor's office when he's talking to me and look for hidden cameras, certain that at any moment, someone will jump out and say, "Just Kidding!" or "You're on candid camera!", that hasn't happened yet. Anyway, it's real, it's very, very painful, and all they can do is give me narcotics that I can't take because I don't have the kind of life that allows me to be stoned on a whim and wait for the rib to "slip" back in.)

I looked out the window, and having a free pass from work because travel anywhere was out of the question, I took two of my aforementioned pain pills and waited a half an hour to be sure they were working. I headed out to the end of my driveway and began shoveling. About ten minutes into the project, I thought I was going to pass out from the pain, and had not even made a dent in what needed to be done.

I was standing there contemplating how in the hell I was going to get my drive done, let alone try to help my neighbor. I'd tried a couple of local snow removal services and took their hysterical laughter as a "No, lady, we're busy", and despite my mental fog, I figured that in the 12 degree weather, melting wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Right then, a truck with a plow pulled up.

"Want me to get that"?

"Um, yes. But could you start with her?" I pointed to my neighbors house.

"Sure thing". He went to work, plowing out my neighbor, then coming over and pulling me out of my drive as well as scraping it out for me, then off he went, galloping away, my knight in a shining green pick-up truck.

Gwen, my neighbor, came over with a card for me. "Why do you keep doing things for me?" She asked as I folded the $25 that was in the card back into her hand.

"I can't take your money. What I'm doing for you will come back to me someday, really. It may have already".

"You look terrible. Are you alright?"

I knew how I looked. Little A had earlier pointed out my "owies" (read: black circles) under my eyes, and my face was white as a sheet. I quickly explained that my rib was injured, and that I was sorry, but I just wanted to go in and lay down for a bit. She thanked me again and I laid down on the couch to drift in and out of my Demerol haze.

When I was drifting in and out of sleep, I kept thinking I was hearing something outside, but figured it was a dream. When I got up off of the couch to look outside, there was Gwen, my little old neighbor, finishing up shoveling off my entire porch.

I opened the door and told her she didn't need to do that for me.

To which she told me that I'd taught her all about things you didn't need to do, and that she just wanted to be sure that some of what I gave to her came back to me.

Maybe it was the effects of the drugs, maybe it was the pain from my rib, maybe it was the fact that the sun was so bright that it temporarily caused insanity, but for about five seconds, I thought, "I can do this. I can change the world".

And I'm still sort of thinking that a little.

And I'm going to need your help.

I've got this idea, this thought, this crazy voice in me telling me that there's so much more that I can do. I'm trying to wrap it all up into something presentable, so that you just can't resist opening it and acting upon it.

Anyone game for a little Karma action? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?