I Am Karma's Little Spartan Boy

A few weekends ago, I was out feeding the homeless. Um, I was painting an inspirational mural while doing calisthenics and rehabilitating a spotted owl with a broken wing. I also helped a couple of old ladies across the street.

FINE, you got me. I was sitting on a stool, drinking beer, in a bar of questionable repute. Same thing I do every weekend (when I'm not running my black market baby business).

As D.C. is a small world after all, the bartender was an old friend I’d lost track of a few (OK, many) years ago. I’d turned 24 and realized Adams Morgan was the grossest place in the whole entire known Universe, so I stopped seeing him at work. Meanwhile, he’d lost my phone number. And then I ran off to South America and the Balkans for a while, so I could learn about bulletproof commuter vans, landmines and meat pies. As you do.

When I ran into him, I gave him a cheerful round of hell for losing my number. How do you lose track of a very loud person with an uncommon last name? Who, at the time, had a listed number, and the only other person with that last name in town was her sister?

So he scribbled his number on a slip of paper, I tucked the paper into my purse, and we made plans to hang out and catch up.

Three guesses what I did with the number.

No, I didn’t use it to call him so we could hang out. I didn’t passive-aggressively put up any sort of “for a good time call” writing on any bathroom walls. Either of those, especially the first, would have been way cooler than what I actually did.

The problem is a friend of much longer standing. Her name is Karma. She likes to play merry hell with me. And Karma is at her wittiest when I make fun of people. If I mock someone, she has me make a spectacular fool of myself in one way or another.

Just this morning, I was laughing at anyone dumb enough to be caught looking at porn at work. Then I Googled a local hauling service, amusingly named “Junk in the Trunk,” and wound up with page after page of naked and be-thonged booty, on my work computer. And did I mention I sit in the reception area? Where everyone can see me? Lesson learned, dude. I won’t be making fun of on-the-job porn freaks any more, as I am apparently their queen.

But let's go back to the phone number. Karma clearly had no choice: not one hour after I got the number, she tucked it into the wrong part of my wallet, and my cab driver got a generous tip (including one free phone number!).

Yeah, I’m that cool. And if you’re the friend I was supposed to call, sorry. I’m sending a search party your way.