Back when I was living in NYC, I had an unfortunate encounter with an African-American woman who was just a bit on the far side of the “psychopathic bitch” line. I am thinking she crossed that line at about age 3 and just kept going until the moment I happen to come across her, about 50 years later.
My partner and I were on the F-train heading to work and, as is usual of the F-train, it was cram packed with people. We were standing in one of the sections between two sets of doors when this woman steps in and pushes her way to where we are.
At first nothing happen, because neither of us really saw her. We had gone a few more stops, when suddenly the train came to a quick stop, like someone hit the emergency brake, between stations. The sudden stop caused quite a few of us standing people to lose our footing, and my partner and I bumped into this woman’s backpack.
We both apologized, but she would have none of it. She went off on a tirade that lasted for the next 20 minutes until my partner came to his stop. She threatened to “pop” us “wonder bread, Crisco, faggots” right there on the train.
I was getting pissed, but she was nothing more than a mouthy bitch, so I just ignored her. This, of course, got her going even more. She got louder and more threatening between my partners stop and her own, and I could see the other passengers getting annoyed and/or nervous that she was actually going to do something on the train.
At her stop, she announced how lucky I was that she was getting off the train now, otherwise I might find a couple bullets in my brain. As she moved towards the door of the train, I watched her leave, and the next thing I know she is sprawled out, face first, on the station platform. The doors of the train closed, and this little old lady, who had been standing next to the door for my entire trip, had this huge smile on her face.
“I think the poor dear tripped over my foot,” the little old lady said, loud enough for many of the passengers to hear. There was quite a bit of laughter on the train as it pulled away from crazy lady’s station.
This was my first insight into the connection between Karma and little old ladies.
The next glimpse of this connection came a few years later, at the Golden Corral in Erie, Pennsylvania. I was having dinner with my sister and her kids, and sitting at the table next us was an elderly couple. The table on the other side of them was empty, but had been shown to a family as their table, and they were getting their food.
As they were away from the table, one of the waitresses had stacked up some dishes from another table she had been cleaning, and was taking the first set back to the kitchen. As she was away, with another stack still sitting on the table.
As she was away, the family returned. The father would have been called overweight, but you could see that the weight was muscle. His wife was scrawny woman with a pinched face and scraggly hair, and you immediately thought it likely she was product of inbreeding, and the two boys looked as if they were going to be more like their mother than their father.
The father had plates piled to overflowing in both hands, with a cell phone wedged between his head and shoulder, talking to someone. He saw the plates on the table, stopped, and yelled out “Yo! Waitbitch! Get these plates off my table!”
Everyone around became silent and looked at this idiot. And as he stood there, waiting for the waitress to finish getting the plates off the table, the little old lady next to our table stood and walked over to the buffet. As she was gone, the waitress cleared the rest of dishes and gave the man a hostile look, but didn’t say a word to him.
The family sat down, started to eat their dinners, when the old lady came back. As she neared the table with the rude asshole father, she tripped, and the bowl of soup she was carrying ended up covering the asshole.
He flew out of his chair, spun to the woman, and you could see he was about to tear her apart. But then he must have realized who had spilled the soup on him, because the little old lady was profusely apologizing. “I am so sorry, young man. I tripped. I Am so sorry.”
He stormed off to the bathrooms to clean up, hurriedly followed by the wife.
The little old lady then sat down in her chair, and she did so, she looked over at our table, because we were watching the whole thing. She gave us this impish little smile and went back to eating the bowl of soup that was already in front of her.
That little smile told the whole story. She wasn’t going to let the asshole get away with being rude to the waitress, and decided to get her own little form of revenge.
And it was with this little event that it truly dawned on me that Karma comes in the form of little old ladies.
There is a reason for this. No one suspects the little old ladies of the world to be able to do something like trip a complete stranger, or pour soup on a rude asshole. And because we don’t suspect it, when it does happen we all think that it was just an accident resulting from their age and frailty, and we easily forgive them any harm they may cause, to us or anyone else.
So, the next time you decide you want or are going do something rude, hurtful, demeaning, or threatening to another human being, or even to an animal, be sure to stop and look around. If you see any little old ladies within 1000 feet of where you are, keep in mind that your actions could quickly come back to haunt you!
The reason I decided to write about this now is a conversation I had with my partner last night, and I was reminded of the psycho-bitch on the F-train. I then told him about the little old lady at Golden Corral, and that Karma comes in the form of little old ladies. He laughed so hard I thought he was going to choke on his drink. He was the one who told me to write this story and share it.
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