Is it safe?

I know, I know – I promised to turn over a new blogging leaf, to be out here more often, and then I disappear.

I’ve had a good reason, I promise. Oh, sure, I’ve been a little busy. I picked up a second job right before the holidays (that’s another blog post – getting a job in retail in the state’s largest mall right before Thanksgiving – uh, really?!), moved Teen Girl home from college right before Christmas, then had to actually do the holidays.

But the real reason is that I’ve been hiding. Not from any actual person, or from anything you can actually see, oh no, nothing that easy. I’ve been hiding from karma. It seems karma has taken quite a liking to me lately, and, well, quite frankly I don’t need any help embarrassing myself or making myself look silly. Karma can just go find someone else to pick on.

Karma, however, doesn’t work that way. She (and, feminism aside, I’m convinced karma is a she because we all know that when it comes to being spiteful, women have that market cornered) arrives on her own time, usually unannounced and uninvited, and leaves whenever she decides it’s time. There’s nothing you can do to speed the process.

Sigh.

So I went into hiding, of sorts. I tried to keep myself from making the snarky comments, thinking the snide thoughts or saying the smart-ass things that instantly came to mind. That’s where karma gets me most – when I’m at my snarkiest. Let’s not forget she waited years, YEARS, before striking at me for that one time I stopped dating a guy for saying he was an aff-eh-KON-dee-oh of weapons, not because of his love of guns but because of what I mistakenly thought was a deliberate mispronouncing “aficionado” and how appalled I was to discover that no, that’s how he really pronounced it.

Then there was the time I waited for a half-hour for a reporter to take him to interview a patient, only to find out the patient had been discharged and the two had arranged privately to meet outside the hospital – and neither thought to tell me.

More recently, at my retail job, karma took another swing. I am one of two non-college students in our particular store, and the other is the store manager. I don’t mind being “the rookie,” and sometimes get a kick out of being the low person on the totem pole. It’s not my first job at retail, however, and I’ve worked with the public in some form or another since I was 13, so I’m more than comfortable talking to people and working the register.

One night I was asked to close by myself – the first time – and one of the college girls asked if I felt comfortable counting down the drawer. Uh, yeah. I think I can handle that.

I should have heard her coming. Thinking back now, I think she was even wearing loud, clacking high heels. That wench, karma.

For the rest of the night I was a bit insulted. “Do I feel comfortable counting down the drawer? Seriously? SERIOUSLY.” Or one of my favorites of the night, “Hmph.”

Then it came down to count down the drawer. I opened the computer program and I counted down the drawer. Then I clicked next and I did it again and hit balance. It didn’t balance. I tried it again – it didn’t balance. This program gives you only three tries, so I panicked. Then I tried again. Nope.

Then I remembered. I was still figuring up the “base fund” when I should have moved on to the deposit. I was using the right numbers on the wrong computer page. I had just completely messed up that night’s deposit.

So, “Do you feel comfortable counting down the drawer?” actually should have finished with, ” … with this software?”

Sooo … yeah. I’ve been in hiding. But as with a bear in hibernation, I can only silence the snark for so long. It’s getting restless and so am I. So I’m back. Karma be damned.