Dear Karma

Dear Karma,

Hi.  How are you?

I must apologise for not writing more often, but, to be honest, for the most part, I don’t feel I have to.  For the most part, you seem to do your job commendably well, and I have no real need to interfere, much less comment, on your existence.

On that: I must also apologise for the several occasions recently in which I have used your name in jest, almost as if you didn’t exist.  Very rude of me.

Speaking of rude, however, let me tell you about my day.

I got up a little later than usual this morning, I admit.  You see, I’d been up all night doing practice exams for this ‘GRE’ exam.  You know, the one that is supposed to right my murky life path and send me onwards to doctoral glory.  The one that’s coming up in two weeks; the one that I’ve put my other studies and, well, life on hold for.  Unfortunately, the practice exam didn’t go as one would hope: not only did I fail to make one of the relevant entrance scores, but I failed to make all of the relevant entrance scores, in every section.  No matter; these things happen. Hardly an event worth mentioning.  Realistically, in the long run, all it meant was a late night.

One seemingly innocent consequence of this was that, having gotten up later than usual, there was no hot water.  Now Karma, I know this shouldn’t seem too unusual for a five-person house, but in actual fact, in my house, it is.  And I know this doesn’t sound like an event worth making mention of, but when you get up in the morning in Canberra – in May – in the former garage of a 1970s house that has no heating or insulation, but a multitude of cracks in the floor – it becomes a bit more of an event.

No matter.  Of course, because I was running a little late, I had to park in the more remote of Treasury’s car parks.  And, of course, it was raining.  Again, not an event worth mentioning, you’d think.  Except that it was raining in Canberra – in May – in the morning.

Soaked, shivering and shattered, I began the day at work.  Ah, the public service, I hear you cry!  Surely no room for whining there.  Hardly an event worth mentioning, you’d think.  However, today just happened to be ‘one of those days’, Karma.  In fact, not only was I unable to take a lunch break, but I wasn’t even able to spare the time to run down a grab a coffee.  So unendingly chained to my desk was I that I dug around the fridge in the kitchen near my desk to see if I’d left any spare food from the previous week – I couldn’t go out and buy lunch, you see.

Eureka! I had found a spare container.  Had you really returned to grace my day, Karma? Unfortunately, it had aged deceptively, and I spent most of the afternoon engaged in a vicious three-way battle between stomach cramps and urgent briefings.  I felt like the Germans in the Winter of ’41,  except colder.  But no matter, Karma; after all, the day was coming to an end!

Not that it was all smooth sailing towards the end of work, mind you.  My computer froze – not once – but three times while I was finishing my projects due by day’s end.  It’s not that unusual for our work network to go down, mind you.  Fortunately, though, it was only my computer crashing.  I say fortunately, of course, because I don’t want to spread this bad luck around.  Not that it’s luck, of course.  These things happen.

Karma, this is where I get just a little confused.  Having been unfortunately presented with three ‘urgent’ tasks, all with a coincidentally simultaneous ‘midday tomorrow’ deadline, to fill my morning tomorrow, I began the sodden trudge back through the cold, dark Canberran rain to my distant car.  Again, forgive me for complaining – these things do happen, I know.  And my house is, after all, a mere 10 minutes from the office.  In fact, so determined was I not to let this day degenerate further, that I was extra-careful on the dark, rainy roads.  Uber-careful, you might say, in quite the same way that Hitler wasn’t in the infamous Winter of ’41.  In fact, as I approached the last intersection before my house, I slowly, deliberately and correctly gave way to the car coming from my right, just in case.  Hardly an event worth mentioning, you might say.

Until I got rear-ended by the car behind me.

These things happen, Karma, I know.  Hardly an event worth mentioning. Which is why I won’t go into the irony of being a hundred metres away from my front door when I got rear-ended trying to be too careful.  Or the irony involved in having to write down the other guy’s details in the pouring rain.  In the dark.  In Canberra.  In May.

Nor the irony that I can no longer get to work on time tomorrow, and therefore won’t be able to make those midday deadlines.

Hardly an event worth mentioning.

So I’m off to bed now, Karma, in my converted-garage of a room, currently shivering at around 3 degrees Celsius, while my crumpled shell of a car sits limply in the driveway.  I only mention it because, well, somehow it seems worth mentioning.  I know, I know – these things just happen.

In any case, I just thought I’d drop you a line, see how you’re doing and what you’re up to, that sort of thing.  Speaking of which, what are you up to tomorrow? Got any plans?

Fancy a catch-up?

Yours sincerely,

Dave