Open All Night

Gregg Easterbrook, Tuesday Morning Quarterback on espn.com, said many times that the NY Giants rode the karma wave from playing all their starters in the meaningless week 17 game right to a victory parade on Broadway in NYC. I bring that up not because I want to talk about the Giants (I will cover that another day), but because of the relevance of karma. As many of you, I am incredibly superstitious. And I am equally leery of karma.

It didn’t resonate with me in my 9th grade English class, when my hippie teacher proudly professed how his “karma ran over his dogma.” How quaint, what a lovely saying for a bumper sticker, I thought at the time. I am not sure when it sunk in, probably midway through college, but I am now forever looking over my shoulder for that kar now. I am generally good at suppressing any malevolent outcomes that karma wishes upon me. But, my peripheral vision failed me mightily in a recent skirmish.

Back a few months ago I spotted someone who was walking around with a hole in his shirt. It was right at the elbow. From inspecting closely, well as close as workplace harassment rules allowed anyway, the resultant damage field showed a clear cause. It had been worn through from overuse. I snickered profusely, as this only lent credence to the running gag that he only had 5 shirts that he has worn since 1988. Said chortling was not what the karma chameleon wanted to hear.

It was only two months later that I returned home from my dry cleaning and noticed a hole in the elbow of maybe my favourite shirt. I had only worn this a handful of times, naturally, and there was a large gash in the elbow. I inspected this one closer, getting as close as my nasal protrusion allowed, and it was obvious this one had been ripped. The wound periphery was too decimated to have been caused by a typical wear pattern. I stormed back to the cleaners and showed them the sleeve. She insisted that I had done that, while I politely showed her that I hadn’t worn in since I picked it up. She offered to try and stitch it. Even though I knew it would look terrible, I allowed her to do it since she refused to reimburse me and it was the only recompense I could get for it.

Sure enough I got the shirt back and it looked like I had a Franken-elbow. She didn’t do a bad job stitching, but it was still obvious. But, she had the gall to try and sneak a charge for it onto my bill. The argument stalled as she said she deserved to be paid for work completed and I retorted with complaints because it was their fault to begin with. Eventually she caved and the charge was removed. I got the shirt home and vowed never to wear it. Well, I caved and wore it once. But I was self-conscious all day and re-vowed only to wear it again when I had no clean clothes.

Fast forward to earlier this week. I pop open another dry cleaning bag and find another shirt with an approved elbow escape route! And of course, it is perhaps my second favourite shirt. This was just the start of an opening though, and was a shirt with relatively thin material that I have worn tens of times. It was a small slit, barely visible. I decided to give it one last go, as a sendoff for its many tours of duty. I went through my day, thinking little of it, when lunchtime approached. I couldn’t remember which arm featured the imperfection, so I decided to check in the washroom. I felt this was a valuable exercise in case I needed to do some minor shielding in the afternoon. I did a Superman-esque maneuver and held up both arms in front of the wall-length mirrors. I was aghast at the results. My elbow was on prominent display. The shirt had split further, like the drawers of a fat man trying to step over a large puddle. I spent the rest of my day trying to keep my sleeves rolled up far enough to disguise the opening while maintaining circulation to my lower arm. It was a losing battle.

I got home and eschewed the rest of my threads for my pajamas. I left the shirt on though, to properly pay homage for its now fatal injuries. As I sorted my laundry into their respective baskets, I leaned forward to take a peak at the other shirt that still remained in the closet. There was a new slit directly under where it had been previously fixed. I sighed, muttered, and then meekly offered penance to the karma fairy.

Cautiously yours,
-Michael

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