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Ooooooh watch out
You're gonna lose control
Cool it now
You got to slow it down
Slow it down...
You're gonna fall in love,” Karma started dancing as the lyrics to the New Edition song her mom would play when she was younger popped into her head.
She stood on the side of her car, elbows bent moving them stiffly up and down as she twisted her body doing the moves of the Robot like she and her mother used to do when she was younger. She couldn’t fix anything mechanical as Mike quickly found out, but she sure could dance like a robot.
She turned back to her car as it gave a hissing pop and a loud clang emanated from it. She stood there staring at it contemplating her engine.
“Hmm.”
Isn’t that what mechanics did as they communed with the car’s engine to figure out what was going on? That is what her long ago ex, Mike did before he started moving wires and pulling dipsticks. She would probably be a lot more successful if she’d paid attention to Mike when he tried to teach her about her car beyond the ability to make sure there was gas in it.
Aren’t moments like this what triple AAA was for? Barista, waitress, maid, cook, dishwasher, and awesome karaoke singer, all professions she had been. Mechanic. Nope. Even worse, she wasn’t even slightly mechanically inclined.
Well her name wasn’t Karma for no reason. She just wondered what fabulous instance of life was catching up with her at this moment. Was it the time that she tried to bake cookies and added to much salt and baking soda? That had resulted in exploding cookies all over her mom’s oven. Or maybe it was the time she convinced her cousin to help her dye her hair purple, and it turned out an orangey-blonde.
She didn’t know for sure what moment in life brought her to this point, but it was occurring for a reason.
The pattern of bad luck engrained in her a strong capacity for going with the flow a long time ago. It also helped her to keep control of her temper. Life taught her, that if she kept a cool head, the universe had a way of working things out.
She continued to stare at the engine. She didn’t have a clue what to do. Fucking karma. Sometimes it had a way of coming around and biting her in her own ass. Maybe she should have taken Mike a little more seriously when he said that a little car knowledge would go a long way in life.
“Karma you’re such a dick!” She yelled into the quickly falling darkness.
She didn’t clarify if she was yelling at the universe or herself. Keeping it neutral prevented something worse from coming back on her. Like an impromptu rock slide that would push her and her car off the side of the mountain. That was the thing about karma. She could be a cranky bitch.
She closed the hood of her car with a sigh. She was clueless as to what caused those strange sounds. She pulled out her cell phone — no bars. She pointed it up towards the sky to see if she could get a decent signal.
“Fuck a duck,” she forcibly shook her phone as she held it up. She turned her body in several directions trying to pick up a signal. Nothing was worse than being trapped on a mountain road with a broken-down car and no cell phone reception. That was just asking to be abducted by aliens or kidnapped by mountain men who hasn't had a woman in years. But knowing her karma the aliens would be gay and the mountain men suffering from erectile dysfunction or even worse the mountain men would be gay and the aliens suffering from erectile dysfunction.
Karma sighed. She was going to have to walk out of the mountains come morning if she couldn’t pick up a cell signal. Good thing she was in shape and had the supplies to do it. If her good luck continued to flow, then at some point along this road, she would be able to get cell reception to call for help.
Good thing her karma wasn’t always bad. She kicked the front tire of her car as she walked down the driver’s side. She scored these babies for free. Someone at the tire shop had put the wrong tires on Betty Lou and by time the shop had discovered their mistake she had already paid in cash for her tire rotation and was three hours away when the store manager contacted her.
“Miss Martin we are so sorry for our mistake.” The store manager spoke on the call, “I just wanted to let you know that the tires you have on your car now are specfically designed to handle the mountain roads.”
“Do you want me to return to the shop and have them removed?” she didn’t want to be accused of stealing even if it wasn’t her mistake.
“No, by the time you return there would already be to much wear and tear on the tires for us to use them on another vehicle. You just continue to use them. I just wanted to apologize for our mistake.”
Karma did a little happy dance in the front seat of Betty Lou after that phone call. “Score.” She shouted.
Yes, sometimes she got hit by good karma. Unless this was the bad type of karma, she was assuming that this was the work of good karma, but there was always a flip side to things, and there was no guarantee that things would work out in her favor.
Still, she just liked to hope things went her way.
This was Colorado.
Civilized people lived in Colorado. They supported LGBT rights. They ate deep fried twinkies. They even had the good sense to legalize weed. Everyone was too high to be able to generate that kind of hate.
In her travels, she had met, and gotten to know many people, when her car wasn’t breaking down. When on a voyage of self-discovery, that was one of the perks, meeting all types of people. And yes, she had encountered a few racist people. But surprisingly the majority of the racist people she encountered were browner than her. She had quickly learned that racism came from all walks of life wearing all types of skin. Even skin close to her shade.
