Karma, 101

Everything I touch breaks.

At least today.

My car, the toilet in our community office bathroom, the toilet at the house I used to rent with my sister, the door which the cops kicked down at the old house I used to live at, and for fuck’s sake, my favorite Channel lipstick, and the end of my living room table (baby toe, meet table, AGAIN…), ect…

Eh.

Similarly, my little sister claims everything in her life rots, i.e. grows mold, from the fridge to possibly her personal life, but I’m not judging, no, of course not.

Conversely, everyone in my office is having a grand old day. So-and- so’s pathetic excuse for a son just bought a house and blah, blah, blah… suck it people!

Do I sound like a five year-old today or what? Maybe someone should just put me on a leash. After all, with my tendency to break shit and what not…..

So, why the rude smart-ass overtones? Readers, I have been feeling somewhat emotionally numb the last few days and cannot be bothered to find one iota of compassion for others in my cold dead lifeless heart.

Also, money people, that’s right, money. I’ve been spending an obscene amount of it lately and found I am somewhat disgusted with myself about it. I received a rather large inheritance over a year ago and I have basically bought a lot of shit. Needless shit. So much for that "conservative with money" accountant stereotype, you won’t find that here, no siree.

And each week it’s a game, isn’t it? We say, I’m going to change this and this and this about my life, next week, yeah, sometime next week. But that time never comes, and well, why should it? When we’re doing just the minimal amount of work in our lives to get by and keep others off our freakin’ backs, there’s not much incentive to achieve, is there?

I the problem is, I was a nose-to-the-grind stone hard core achiever for many years, and managed to make some pretty impressive strides in my life. But now, it’s just enough to get by….heh. How did it come to this, I ask myself often. And each week I make impossible promises to myself about how dedicated and service-orientated I will be and how much joy I will experience because of it, and then… fuck…. it’s pedicures, shopping, tanning, excessive gyming (is that a word?) and martinis on a Tuesday night.

Key lime pie martinis.

Who does that?

Some people my age have 2.5 kids, the house, The Job, ect, ect, ect..
Yet, I cannot be bothered with such humdrum. I’ve been catching flack from friends lately about being more “adult-like” and “stop all that partying girlfriend!” which is actually ironic, because 5 years ago with my nose held to the stone, they looked awfully frivolous in my eyes.

Well, Justin Timberlake, you just might be on to something there, what goes around does come round’. Funny, I thought I told ya.

The cops kicked my door down last night, and how was your night?

I was sleeping soundly in my bed, all safe n’ warm, when my sister and her boyfriend burst into my room yelling, “Someone’s breaking into our house, call 911!” I sprang out of bed, grabbed my cell phone and dialed 911 as my hands were shaking. I could hear a loud banging noise coming from the upstairs. Someone was trying to get in. I told the 911 dispatched, “They’re pounding on the windows, and they’re coming in now!” A loud crash was heard from the basement. My sister and I were both screaming when they said, “Police! Police!” Still unconvinced, my sis asked for the officer’s badge, then my sis’s boyfriend opened my bedroom door and let them in. The cops said, “Where is *______* (insert name of my youngest sister)? I said, “She’s at her boyfriends, what’s going on?” To which they replied, “Your sister was on her cell phone with someone when she said “Oh my God, I’m going to die” and then her phone hung up. Her friend then called the police. We traced her cell phone to this address, how can we find her?”

The next ½ hour was spent frantically searching for her boyfriend’s address in a neighboring town. Her boyfriend, now in jail, has a history of violent and abusive behavior. Also, his friends are somewhat questionable. This, of course, increased our anxiety levels. I called my mom, who immediately left her house. As she was backing out of her driveway, two cop cars pulled up behind her questioning her about my sister’s whereabouts.

Eventually, my other sister tracked down the boyfriend’s address and officers were sent to the house immediately. It turns out that my sister was having a bad dream when she answered her friend’s call and said “Oh my God, I’m going to die.” She honestly does not remember saying any such thing to her friend, or even talking to her. My sis has been known to talk in her sleep and sleep walk, especially when she was younger, but hasn’t any incidents since then. Anyway, needless to say, it took a long time before we all calmed down and were able to sleep.

The lesson here is to make damn sure you have all the contact info of your loved ones plus numbers of close friends to call in case of an emergency. Since we all hate my sister’s boyfriend with the fire of a thousand suns we made no effort to find out where he lived or even his last name.

Also, as I tossed n’ turned trying to sleep after having my front door kicked down by the police, I thought about all the families in Iraq and elsewhere who live with the day-to-day fear that their loved ones could be abducted from their homes and killed during the middle of the night. The horror and helplessness that I felt, even in just believing for a couple of minutes that someone was trying to break into my house, was downright terrifying. I can’t imagine going to bed every night with that fear. Sally’s gonna get herself a gun, or at least a freakin’ can of mace.

Latvia, isn’t that by Libya?

THINK GLOBALLY, AVOID STUPIDITY

The general idiocy one encounters during a nightly excursion is frightful. First let me say, my sisters and I are expert liars. Since we are fairly well-traveled, more so than the average South Dakotan, we can pretty much get away with re-inventing our nationality at will. So, on Saturday night we ascended upon our victims with vigor, armed with our fake accents and a hodgepodge of facts.

We arrived at the house party at 9:30 pm, after heavily debating whether we should have “Prom Night” this weekend or next weekend. Let me explain. For Prom Night, each of us will adorn ourselves in THEE most garish obnoxious prom dresses ever- white gloves and all. During this shameless evening of cheesiness we will terrorize the city, one person at time. Sounds fun, eh? Anyway, I’m off topic, back to faking my nationality.

So, here we are, in a perfectly nice neighbor hood, Captain Morgan clutched firmly in my hand, as we walk to the door. Upon entering the house of said victims, we discuss the ins and outs of our plan, and rehash the basic elements of our story. Here’s the breakdown: Our parents, both high-ranking government officials in Latvia, left due to political pressure after the collapse of the USSR. We immigrated to the U.S. when I was about 8 years old, yet often return to our home during the summer months.

We began mingling with guests, using our fake accents as an opportunity to facilitate dialogue. Since the women at the party were out-numbered by the men, it was somewhat easy to lure them in. By 10:00 p.m., we had a host of on-lookers surrounding us, asking where we were form, how long we’ve been here, ect…

During the course of the conversation there were some serious displays of ignorance. Such as, “Oh yeah, Latvia, that’s by Libya, isn’t it?” and “No, No, No dude, Latvia is in Southern Europe, stupid” while he hit another boy on the head with his big gorilla hand. There were other cultural faux pas, as well as the occasional challenge. One guy actually said, “Ok, so what’s the capital of Latvia then?” To which my sister replied, “It's Riga, R-I-G-A” without missing a beat. However, if I would’ve told him the capital was Toronto, I doubt he would have known the difference.

After an few hours of delivering an Oscar-nominated performance, we left the party, dissolving into a fit of giggles as we stumbled to the car.

Score one for the foreign chicks.