toilet mishap.
Just happened. Got annoyed with the stupid toilet roll dispenser in one of the traps here and ended up kicking it violently. It fell apart and the last remaining roll fell and rolled away in to a puddle of piss. Bollocks.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 14:22, 1 reply)

Bikes
Are a top opportunity for karmageddon.

Mrs ChaRleyTroniC has a peripatetic job and has taken to cycling around her (large) town on her way from workplace to workplace. As a tree-hugging cycling weenie I'm very proud of her.

Unfortunately said large town is an utter splithole where the chavs love nothing more than to steal any bikes left lying around (where "lying around" means "chained up in a well-lit place with CCTV"). And it duly happened that, one evening, someone stole her bike.

Or rather, someone tried to steal her bike. We're guessing they were interrupted, or something. Whatever, the next morning she found it leaning against the wall, with no lock, and - bizarrely - the axle-y thing removed from the front wheel. (Apparently they're quite valuable.)

Busy day at work, so no time to fix it or even lock it up again, so Mrs C leaves it there.

Next morning she comes into work to find the bike in the middle of the car park. With a mangled, buckled wheel and some very bent front forks.

Evidently some more chavs had come around, seen an unlocked bike, thought "aye aye, we'll have this", and gone for a celebratory spin round the car park. At which point the unattached front wheel collapses underneath them.

Ow.


Apparently bike karma is now quite common in London. The big thing at the moment is the (utterly pointless IMO) "fixed-gear" bike. No gears, no rear brake, sometimes no front brake either. You slow down by moving your legs more slowly on the pedals.

This is a refinement utterly lost on your average bike-stealing chav... until the first time they encounter a traffic queue/brick wall/police horse.
(ChaRleyTroniC is invincible with his chips and cheese, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 14:16, 2 replies)

Nature's Karma
I did know one about this white-feathered bird who was brought up in a destitute and baron cage, destined for the gallows and what looked like someone’s dinner.

Still she managed to escape the chop and fled to Birmingham where she lives happily with an Indian family.

Apparently that’s chicken korma for you.

I’m really sorry, but it’s Friday and I’m starting to lose it big time.
(Deskbound You insignificant speck of dust, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 13:55, Reply)

Karma Out of Balance
I'm going to apologise now for lack of funny.
While completing my Teacher training I was working at a local school in my home town, it's a bit rough and had it's fair share of chavs going there.

There was one such student (M) who I had the pleasure of teaching (I'm still learning and the staff decided to give me a disillusioned, low achieving group and little to no guidance on it for a subject I'd never taught).

M was one of the worst students I'd ever taught, he was a bully, he even tried bullying teachers in the school. He'd managed to make one teacher leave the school and I believe the profession as well, he had a terrible attitude when he turned up to class and even when he was there it was impossible to teach with him in the room, constant interruptions, messing with his cohorts and no amount of sanctions worked.

I left that school not totally equipped for teaching and this reflected in my inablility to get a job (I ended up doing supply teaching for 2 years after this) I later found out the school in question were not even sending out references when requested so that must have looked brilliant for me although nothing was ever mentioned during my time at the school about any sort of lack of satisfaction with my progress but this is besides the point.

I am heading to work one day when I find out that there had been a massive crash up the road from where I live. A group of youths had been speeding down a local road, lost control of the car and hit a van then ploughed onto the pavement and into a wall of another local school, killing a number of the occupants including M. This occurred in the wee small hours of the morning so the pathway was empty, but could have been so much worse at any other hour.

I wonder what would have happened if M had not died in that crash, what would have happened and what would he become.

I remember thinking at the time that I could see it coming for him and at the same time hating myself for judging that way. I still regret that thought now a number of years on and ensure that I am not as judgemental as I once was.

It was a needless death that could have been prevented at any number of events in his life, perhaps some fault is mine for not being the great teacher I wanted to be.

Since then I've met a number of ex students from that school who I taught (I'm still local to the area and see them in the odd pub) and they've since let me know that i was an ok teacher and I'm pretty glad that that they turned out ok (one owns a business and the other is an up and coming boxer).

Sorry about length and the lack of humour but I feel better for having got it out of my system.

I agree with FrankSpencer:
Fuck Karma - there is no such thing, we attempt to connect things together to give balance to the good and the bad and hope it adds up. All we can do is try to do the right thing at the right time and hope it all works out.
(Fuckarma was masturbating into your handbag, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 13:47, 7 replies)

Teenage Pert Lovelies
When I was a mere stripling in the late 80s, I was a typical male teenager, in that if it was remotely female, had a pulse or was at least still warm, I'd be after it. The phrase 'rat up a drainpipe' applied.

I was a hormone-addled wretch, letching over any unfortunate female unlucky enough to come within a 30 meter radius. And this was the days before reliable access to decent porn, and waaaay before t'internet (yes kids there was such a time).

Skip forward to university, and I was still a keen student of the beauties of the female form. Although I never strayed if I was in some form of relationship (and believe me'some form of' describes most of them) unlike one particular lady who fucked with my head good and proper for three years, I would still have a look.

Skip forward to literally the very end of University, and I met the future Mrs Osok. Despite her talons being firmly wrapped around my scarred and ossified heart, I was away for the summer, letching away. Once her term had resumed, I was an occasional visitor to an all female Hall, with obligatory perving.

For the next 5 (yes bloody five, I'd have got less time if I'd shot her)years we were weekend lurrrvers as she studied, post-gradded and entered work. I 'enjoyed' a succession of crap jobs and watched any vestige of a career gurgle noisily down the plughole. Still perving, natch, but that doesn't make me a bad person as we were 250 miles apart.

Eventually I agree to move from the other end of the country, and we get hitched. By this time t'internet had arrived, and the occasional viewing of 'artistic' sites was pretty much a given.

Sooo, we get to a point where as a 'completely stable' idiot cunningly disguised as a responsible adult, I still play 'Rate the Arse' while going around Sainsburys (less than ten points per visit and it's a bad day).

What's that? Oh, Karma.


The thing is,


I've got a baby daughter.

A beautiful, beautiful baby daughter.

With HUGE blue eyes.

Who is already an accomplished flirt with any bloke she claps eyes on. Even the window cleaner agrees.

I've got to spend the next couple of decades on the alert for all those filthy bastards out there who will want to do to my daughter exactly what I spent so much time and effort attempting to do to someone else's.

Bugger.


Bugger, Bugger, Bugger, Bugger.

I've been practicing 'Scary Dad' routines already (she's 15 months old, get a grip you shout) but am becoming a gibbering wreck at the prospect.

Anyone know of a good nunnery, preferably with very big guard dogs or at least extremely hirsute nuns?
(osok Rebel without a clue, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 13:42, 19 replies)

Ha haaa, not so clever now!
Sadly (and probably quite rightly) I was the victim of karma last year whilst staying overnight at my parent’s house with my boyfriend.

It was about 9.00 in the morning and we had been sleeping on my parents fold out sofa bed for the night. It was a relatively comfy snooze although the three metal bars that ran the width of the bed (and sat under the mattress) would randomly dig into your back if you shuffled around too much in your sleep.

Anyhoo… we were lying around talking about this and that when I finally figured that it was time to get up and swung my legs out of the bed. My boyfriend then decided that he wouldn’t let me leave so grabbed hold of my waist and pulled me back into bed shouting, “Ah ha you’re not going anywhere”. I kept struggling and tried to escape but he wasn’t having any of it, he’d somehow managed to trap my legs under his and then proceeded to tickle me!

Now I have serious issues with being tickled as it makes me giggle ridiculously and convulse around so much that sometimes I forget to breathe – which can be a bit of a pain in the bum. Right. So my brain frantically tried to think of a way out of the madness and came up with a winner. When my boyfriend went in for the rib-tickling-kill I pretended he had hurt me and rolled onto my front and started coughing frantically. He (obviously concerned) loosened his grip and leaned forward to see if I was okay. I took my chance and dived out of bed shouting “HA HAAA NOT SO CLEVER NOW” and proceeded to run around the bed and madly dance out of the room… problem was, he was faster and managed to jump in front and rugby tackle me to the bed… where I fell on one of the metal bars… and winded myself… and cried in pain… and got no sympathy as he thought it was another evil trick, right up until the part when he rolled me over and saw that I had turned purple!

Like I said at the start, totally my fault for being a sneaky little minx… lesson learned, I no longer fake injury to escape being tickled, I just deal with it!!
(Flim-Flam the Magnificent "You is talking loco and I like it!", Fri 22 Feb 2008, 13:38, 6 replies)

Karmic universal balance
(According to the mas media) heavy tokage causes you to lose all of your friends, but also causes schizophrenia to provide a new crowd to chill with?
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 13:32, 2 replies)

The last laugh?
To all those hippy-type 'mates' who were so cool when I was a youth, who derided me as being 'uncool' when I declined to smoke joints, sniff coke or drop acid, who got to shag all the really gorgeous, impressionable chicks and who are now suffering from paranoid delusions and a fascinating range of other psychoses:

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, you fucked up, burned out old losers.

Oh, and it's not a paranoid delusion if I really have been shagging your gorgeous, impressionable (twenty-something) daughter.
( MisterPunch did it that way on, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 13:16, Reply)

This morning
Was sat downstairs eating my breakfast, for I am a dirty student and in the habit of not getting up any earlier than 11am unless I really have to. However today I had to get up early to help build the greyhound run.

There's this neighbour of ours, who I shall call L, who likes to drive fast in his car. Now, I'm currently at my parents house, which happens to be out in the sticks, so a Land Rover or other 4x4 is almost a necessity in most kinds of weather and then definitely becomes required in heavy flooding/snow/etc. L does not have such a thing. He only has a crappy Rover.

Also, L dislikes animals. Especially of the small variety. Birds he absolutely hates although everyone's not sure why.

This incident was almost like divine retribution. L is bombing it down our road, which isn't really a road, more like a glorified single-lane dirt track, about a hundred feet past our house, when he startles a few birds in the hedgerow. They fly out in front of him, and he carries on, seemingly trying to hit them. He does hit one, and it goes under his wheel. The wheel spins, and L somehow stays on the road. For all of twenty seconds or so. For a deer has launched itself out of the hedgerow and across the road and L has had to swerve to avoid it. However, possibly because of the dead bird lubricating one of his wheels, he swerves more than is usual and ends up burying his car partly in the ditch, partly in the hedge, not very much on the road.

Hah. Karma at its finest.
(Ghost Atreides enjoying incontestable health benefits on, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 13:16, 2 replies)

Latent karma
I used to see a little girl of about 9 at the bus stop each morning as I went by on my bike. She was a tiny, pale-faced little thing who always seemed to be frowning or utterly focused on a book. Every morning she was there; every morning not smiling. It made me wonder.

Then, one Saturday, I saw her walking alone through the town and decided I'd follow her - just to see who she was. She went from bookshop to bookshop, never buying anything but spending ages leafing lovingly through the new books. She didn't talk to anyone.

I followed her when she waited for a bus, and I followed her when she got off the bus in a rough area of the town. Her house was a run-down tenement with a scrapped car sitting on bricks in the front 'garden' and a big dog tied up with rope. Fortunately, there was a phone box opposite, so I was able to watch a little longer.

And that's when I saw what her life was really like. Her father, an unshaven slob in a stained white vest just seemed to sit in front of the TV all the time as she brought him his lunch on a tray. When he was finished, he dropped it on the floor for her to pick up.

None of my business, of course. But I felt for the girl when she seemed to ask about something on the TV and her dad clouted her round the head without taking his eyes off the screen. She didn't cry. She turned and walked out of the room.

The next day I vowed I would go to those bookshops and buy the copies of the books she had so lovingly stroked. I bought them all and left them in a box on her doorstep before ringing the bell and retiring to my phone box to watch.

But there was no one home and I left.

The next Monday, I didn't see the girl at the bus stop. Nor the next, or for the rest of that week. It was a colleague who alerted me to the story in the local newspaper. I trembled as I read the headline: Bibliophobic Convicted Paedophile Crucifies Own Step-Daughter and Commits Suicide in Bath Of Battery Acid. The article continued, "Mr Samsa, 47, was so averse to the very presence of a book that he went into a psychotic rage if he even smelled one..."

I had killed that girl by buying her books. I had interfered with the cosmic system of karma and reaped the grisly harvest of life's mysterious balances.

[Well, COME ON! QOTWs are becoming like fucking "Our Song". B3ta should have Kleenex as a sponsor]
(frankspencer, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 13:02, 8 replies)

Thank you Carson Daly
You know the kind of guy who does nothing but bad things and then wonders why his life sucks. Well, that was me, Every time something good happened to me, something bad was waiting right round the corner. Karma, that’s when I realized that I had to change, so I made a list of everything bad I’ve ever done and one by one I’m gonna make up for all my mistakes, I’m just trying to be a better person. My Name is Earl.
( ma0sm, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 12:52, 1 reply)

Instant Karma, just add idiot
This only happened last weekend, I went down to MotorWorld with my brother as he was looking to buy a car stereo with all the bells and whistles.

He found one, that had bluetooth on it and in his infinite wisdom decided to scrap CD's and continue playing his awful R 'n' B from his phone, through his huge boom box via bluetooth.

Now, the thing with my brother is he is a bit* of a slag, i mean he usually has 3-4 girls in his company, and he'll sleep with one until she gets boring and then move on to the next and then repeat the whole process and the poor naive young girls have no idea what hes up to!

well one of the cooler features of his stereo is the option to put a call through your speakers via bluetooth and my brother was giving one of his girls a 125 point inspection when his phone rings and is automatically put through to the stereo! (your supposed to accept the call but somehow it happened automatically, i suspect this was karma playing its part)

and who is on the other end? one of the other girlfriends, and when his current girlfriend heres the call coming through the sub she starts yelling and demanding who it is etc..etc, but of course the girl who had phoned him can now hear this girl who is in the car and she starts yelling and demanding and then she hangs up and the girl in the car gets out...without her knickers she had left them in the passenger footwell and stormed out,

unfazed my brother puts said knickers in the glove compartment of the car and drives around to another of his girlfriends houses to sate his sexual frustration. She gets in the car and asks if she can put a CD on he agrees and she opens the glove compartment to get a CD.....

you couldn't make this kind of crap up.

*Bit, is a little bit of an understatement on a par with saying Hitler was a bit disturbed
(The Reverend annoying the regulars since, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 12:45, Reply)

My childhood bullies
were total cunt's. To the point that I took up martial arts Batman style as a child with the sole intent of beating the shit out of them at a later stage. This did not happen - what did happen was one guys brother died of cancer and the other guys brother got stabbed to death. The former is now a wreck of an alcoholic with a fugly woman with two kids from a previous wreck of a marrige. Every time I think of this I get a warm feeling. Still might petrol bomb his car though - cunt.
(Jumper, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 12:40, Reply)

aint life a bitch
I had cancer as a little boy and the doctor had to remove both of my testicles.

Now I am a man and enjoy injecting myself whilst trying to beat Freddie Mercury's record for number of shags.

Who would have thought it when the doctor said "You haven't got Aids"..

I'm the luckiest guy on the planet.
(TheRiddler Hmmmmm... I concur., Fri 22 Feb 2008, 12:39, Reply)

A bit crap, but...
Last year on the Thursday before my birthday weekend I went to Tescos for the usual stuff. Upon leaving the till I noticed a tenner folded up on the floor. I had a quick look round to see if it was obviously dropped by someone but couldn't see anyone, so I handed it in at the info desk. The security guy scoffed at me as if to say "It's only a tenner" but that could've been someone's last tenner in the world. Feeling smug I left the store and went home.

Skip forward two days to the night out. We got to the first pub and despite it being my birthday I offered to get a drink in. I put my hand in my pocket to find it empty. The tenner I'd been given as a present was no longer there. Panicking, I resigned myself to the fact that I'd lost the money when I got a tap on the shoulder. A bloke who had been stood at the door had found said tenner on the floor and wondered if it was mine. I could have kissed him (I didn't). I offered him a drink but he politely declined and went back to his mates.

Absolute legend. Obviously, had I hung onto the Tescos tenner I wouldn't have been out of pocket, but I like to think that my good deed perpetuated his.

Then again, I could've been ten quid up. We'll never know.
(titusyouclown, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 12:30, 1 reply)

The Parasitic Karma Mobile
You'll need a bit of background for this story, and then a bit more, so bear with me a tic.

I have a few phobias. Mostly, they don't interfere with my life, unlike people who spend their existence cowering from spiders nonchalantly weaving webs and digesting flies. I fear geese (they're bloody evil, and they chase you) and wasps (they're bloody evil, and they chase you), and I fear parasites.

My sister once bought home hair lice from Brownie camp, and I wore a swimming hat and screamed at her if she came near me. I even adapted a stick to become the Sister Prodding Stick if she came too close.

Skip forward many years to when I was at university, in an appalling house with appalling people. One morning, I was up early, doing my coursework, and I casually scratched my scalp, as you do, and came back with a fingernail bulging with life.

I had lice.

If you want to understand just how upset I was, try to picture a grown woman, in her pyjamas, crying and trying to run away from her own head.

After I calmed down enough to form sentences, I practically ran to the pharmacists, and demanded poisons. NOW. The pharmacist asked me a few questions, which I answered in a frenzy. One of them was "do you have asthma?". When I answered yes, she sighed and shook her head. "I'm afraid I can't sell you the ten minute lotion then. You'll have to use the 12 hour one." I tried to convince her that I'd made a mistake, and I didn't have asthma at all (to hell with breathing when your head is holding a population equal to Chinas), but she was having none of it.

And so followed the longest twelve hours of my life, coated in poison, wearing a plastic tesco bag with it's handles over my ears to catch the cascade of dying parasites. I bought enough to treat all my housemates too, as I was mortified at bringing such a plague into our home.

Or I was, until my housemate's boyfriend muttered the famous line "Oh, well you can't have caught them off Carol, because she had them last week."

Such stunning logic floored me, and then enraged me as I realised she'd been infested and neglected to tell any of us.

I waited for her in the lounge, drenched in poison, wearing a tesco bag over my ears, full of a deep and terrible rage.

She came home, and I launched into an epic rant. She apologised, and I relented. Slightly. However, my final words were these:

"I can just about cope with you giving me hair lice. Just. But if you ever bring home scabies, I will fucking kill you where you stand. Do you understand me? I WILL KILL YOU WHERE YOU STAND."

Skip forward a week. A traumatic week of finding the bath coated with dead lice, burning my hairbrushes, and constantly searching my head to prove the plague had gone. I come home, and Carol is waiting for me in the hallway.

"Smell my skin." She says. It's not the most enticing offer, and I declined.

"Smell it." She insisted. I sighed, and gave her a tentative sniff. She smelt exceptionally toxic.

"I went to the doctors. I've got scabies. They've given me a lotion for us all to use."

For those of you that have never had scabies, the treatment for getting rid of colonies of repulsive creatures burrowing, shitting, screwing and making babies under your skin is to paint yourself from earlobes to ankles in toxic lotion, and then wait for 24 hours. There is no indignity quite like having to get someone to paint your arse with poison while you cry.

It was the worst twenty hour hours I've ever endured. I wept, I retched, I threw away all my bedding, and I had to tell my boyfriend that there was a very good chance tiny creatures were pooing in his skin.

So where's the karma?

Skip forward another week, and Carol has been back to the doctors for the results of her skin swab. The kicker?

She didn't have scabies at all. The stress of me threatening to "FUCKING KILL HER WHERE SHE STANDS" had bought her out in a psychosomatic rash, which had been diagnosed as scabies.

Oh how we laughed :(

There you go. Parasitic karma in action.
(Smaldini www.fuggler.com, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 12:29, 6 replies)

Sorry, not particularly eloquent.
My 'stepbrother' (no actual marriage to make the connection, but you know what I mean) was a grade-A cnut. He caused no end of problems for our admittedly 'Jeremy-Kyle-esque' extended family. He'd been a serious stoner for several years with some recreational use of harder stuff on occasions.

About a decade ago, he strted getting into coke in a bad way. He had a mountain of debts for various items that were steadily going bad and owed pretty much everyone in the family money from sponging, especially my mother & her partner (his dad) who were struggling with large debts themselves.

Things came to a head when it came to light that he'd stolen £20 from our house (I still lived 'at home' then) and I confronted him about it. The result was a poorly choreographed fist-fight which was swiftly broken up when he tried to use a house-brick as a weapon and threatened to have me 'jabbed' by one of his junkie mates.
He must have been fond of the humble brick, as he used several to increase the ventilation in my brothers house, via the windows, after a slight altercation.

Karma comes sinto the story a couple of months after the events above. His addiction was kicking in big-time and I heard he'd been beaten up over drug debts. The story that eventually came to light was that he'd gotten himself 10 grams on credit (he was dealing to fund by that time) and had gone home and hoovered up the lot. Apparently his conscience finally emerged and got the better of him, leading him to hang himself with the hoover wire.

If he'd asked, I would have helped him out. After all, you have to use specific knots with electrical flex to prevent it untying itself. (He was found on the floor - apparently it held long enough!

A year afterward, I read his suicide note (scribbled on the back of a used envelope - he never did have any style!) and chuckled at his pathetic blaming of anyone and everyone else for the problems he caused for himself.

Am I harsh?
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 12:06, 8 replies)

Fastest Karmic payback ever.
Whilst on holidays some years back, my partner needed to get hold of some aspirin for a shocking headache, so we drove into this little town on the coast of northern New South Wales looking for a Chemist.

We found one, and whilst inside, Mr S drew my attention to a rack of sunglasses of the kind that fits over your existing prescription glasses, covering them totally. I'd never seen such a great idea, and picked up a pair. Mr S then spotted a sign saying "Buy one get one free from this rack" as they were all end-of-line sunglasses.

The girl on the counter rang up the price, but didn't do the 'free' thing, so she had to have another go and couldn't figure out how to enter it into the computer system. She became totally flustered, and had to consult another counter-girl who also couldn't figure it out.

Eventually between the two of them, they managed to complete the transaction and as I was walking out the door with our new sunglasses and the aspirin, Mr S took a look at the receipt and whispered "They cocked up! They didn't charge us for one pair, and charged only half price for the other!"

I was halfway through turning around to go back when he ushered me out of the shop, muttering under his breath "Quick! Before they realise and call after you! GO!"

In the truck (my Ford F350 ute, no airconditioning) and on the road again, Mr S was jubilant, chortling about how we'd got something for free. I told him that I would have preferred to go back and make a clean breast of it, but he just laughed at me for being a 'goody two shoes'.

Not five minutes later, we were driving down some deserted country road, and ploughed through a mist of something spread across the road.

The mist was a swarm of bees, a dozen or so of which were driven into the cabin of the truck by the slipstream. Mr S was stung three times, I got off scot-free. Pulling over to urge the winged survivors out the window, I picked two out of my hair, while Mr S ouched and %&*#@ at the stings on his arm, neck and scalp.

He then said "That's the quickest Karmic beat down I've ever seen in my life." Had to agree.
( Shazzoir Old enough to know better young enough not to care, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 11:54, Reply)

Will today be the day?
It's common knowledge that I have a gold club card waiting for me in hell, wherest my colleague and I are guaranteed to end up on account of our ability to see flaw in anyone and everyone. With the aid of photoshop, simple flaws can be magnified into huge canyons, but hey ho, I'm preaching to the choir here.

anyho... I needed to learn some stuff around PHP and Databases (manly techie stuff for you girls!) and what better way than to compile a database, and build a web frontend to allow the uploading of photos, and descriptions of ALL our colleagues.

we had weeks and weeks of fun, and it got further and further past the line of even bad taste.

Eventually, we laughed so much I got gout and he got a sty on his eye*. Still, a small price to pay for wetting your kecks 8 hours a day 5, days a week.

*I don't think laughing actually causes gout or stys, so it must be karma!
( Piper Alpha is being a grumpy northerm bastard on:, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 11:41, 1 reply)

Karma?
This isn’t a particularly easy post for me to make, but because of this week’s question I thought I’d share…

Usually this story is one I only tell people who have known me a fair length of time because, believe it or not, I’m actually a very
private person. However, I was once asked to do some work for the Lavender Trust – at the time I was too busy bringing up my sons so instead here’s my bit in the interests of offering hope…

Good grief - that sounds terribly worthy – I'm not, but the story is.


*****************

Many years ago during the summer of my 21st birthday I had it all – I was at uni studying history with plans to become a primary school teacher, I had my own car, good friends, and a handsome boyfriend who was two years later to become my first husband and as I was also to discover, gay….but that’s another story…


One day I was laying in the bath feeling smug about my perfect life when I noticed a small lump sitting on the top of my right breast, in fact more on the flat part of my upper chest. I thought it strange as I’d never noticed it before and put it down to hormonal fluctuations – surely it would disappear when I’d had my period. So I left it for a couple of weeks waiting for it to go.

It didn’t.

Full of shame and embarrassment I booked an appointment with the nurse at my doctors’ surgery – why the shame and embarrassment?

Need I remind you I was a good catholic girl?
Despite having long since lost my virginity I had not had many boyfriends, I was not accustomed to whipping out my boobs at any drunken opportunity – to my mind (despite obvious evidence to the contrary) I was fat and therefore unattractive – in other words I was pretty much an ordinary young woman.

So with head hung down to hide my burning cheeks I took off my t-shirt and bra to show the nurse the lump I’d found on my breast. She took one look, called me silly for coming to see her and not the doctor and called in my GP. This man had known me all my life – seen me go through measles, chickenpox, german measles, mumps – in fact, you name it, I’d had it. My shame deepened – he was going to see my breasts!

He examined me and told me, "Oh, that’s nothing, just a fibroid adenoma."
A what?
"Very common. Nothing to worry about."

Weeks passed and finally in the late autumn I saw the surgeon. "This lump – yes, probably a fibroid adenoma, but let’s take it out just to be on the safe side"

Fast forward to March – two months before my 22nd birthday.

I go in for day surgery to have this lump taken out – I’m in the hospital at around 8am and have left by 3pm feeling fine but a little sore. Told to come back in a week to have the stitches taken out.


All the other appointments I had attended alone – I’m a very independent person, always have been. This time however my mum came along – I made her sit in the waiting room, as I wouldn’t have her see my breasts!

In the examining room I sat with a nurse, she was probably in her early thirties and was there to help the surgeon remove the stitches and act as female chaperone. The surgeon came in and before he began to attend to the wound he very gently told me that unfortunately the lump hadn’t been a benign fibroid adenoma but instead it was a malignant tumour.

Breast cancer.


When I got up from the emotional number 8 bus which had just run me over my first question, the obvious question, “Am I going to die?” And to his credit he didn’t lie to me or fob me off – he was completely honest, “I don’t know. Come back this afternoon, speak to a colleague of mine, an oncologist, and he will be able to tell you more.”

He then took out the stitches, squeezed my hand and wished me good luck. Then he went to get my mother. I was left with the nurse who simply kept repeating, “Oh please don’t cry! Don’t cry, please don’t cry!”

I drove myself and my mum home – she’d already phoned my dad who happened to be having a day off. I don’t honestly remember much about those few hours between being told and then going back to the hospital in the afternoon. Except that I truly believed I would die within the year. I went for a shower and stood under the water sobbing with regret that I would never be married, never have children, never have a life. Then I began to pull myself together – the strangest things get you through times like these – I kept on thinking of all the young servicemen who had been killed in wars – they would have been a similar age to me and they were dead now. If they could get through it, so could I.

The next six months passed in a daze – I had been reassured that I was not terminal, everything had been caught at an early stage. However because of my age they needed to be sure that that I didn’t have a reoccurrence. I had chest x-rays, a bone scan, ultrasounds of my liver and then the treatment.

First off was six weeks of radiotherapy – just like having an extended x-ray – three times a week for about 20 minutes at a time. During those six weeks I wasn’t allowed to wear deodorant or even talc because they would interfere with the treatment. The skin on my breast and under my arm became reddened then sores opened – I had to wear a t-shirt under a bra like some sort of bizarre female superman.

Around the same time I also began a regime of chemotherapy – I was lucky my hair didn’t fall out, but I had it all cut off to a short crop just in case. After the radiotherapy finished I spend a week in hospital alone in a lead-lined room with five radioactive wires skewering my breast and no one was allowed to visit me for more than fifteen minutes a day to protect them from the radioactivity.

Throughout the entire six months no one would have known I was ill – I looked just the same, yes I’d cut my hair and I was a little tired, but I didn’t lose any weight or look ill. I saw other patients – thankfully mostly old – come and go, many of them dying, including a young woman only a few years older than myself who had two young children.



Karma? I did wonder for a long time what I’d done in a previous life to deserve this.

But…..



Fast forward six years – I’m divorced from the handsome gay man and have remarried. One month after the wedding we decide to start to try for a family – no hanging about as I had been warned that I may find it difficult or even impossible to conceive because of all the treatment.


And that’s where the Karma comes in….

First attempt.

Twins.

Non identical twins – that’s two eggs – in other words, don’t sit to close to men on buses as you are über-fertile.

Healthy pregnancy, boys delivered full term and large – both around seven pounds.


That was ten years ago. I continue to go for regular mammograms but my chances now of developing cancer are the same as anyone else.



If that’s Karma, I can deal with it.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 11:34, 33 replies)

Karma
If I was really Danny Wallace I'd win this QOTW and no mistake.

And I'd make a forture selling a book about the subject too.

But I'm not, so I haven't.
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 11:29, 2 replies)

Casper, the almost ghost
About 8 or 9 years ago now when I was about 17/18 and I had the pleasure of having contacted an agency, being given a job working in maturation at a chicken
factory... its basically transporting chickens around a giant freezer, not as monotonous as working on the productions line, just bloody cold.
With a bank holiday monday looming, and fearing that I may have to spend it getting shitfaced at the local, sitting in the beaming sun by the river banks, I
was ecstatic to here that it was company policy to work the bank holidays, and with no extra pay, Glorious.

So off I set, driving down one of the busier Lincolnshire roads, and quite an accident hotspot. About halfway down I spot a young lad, maybe 14ish riding his bike on the grass verge by the side of the road, he had a fishing rod under his arm as he cycled, and was weaving around. Immediately I was filled with dread.

Sure enough without warning, I'm not sure wether he lost balance, or just turned without looking (I assume the latter) he flew across the road being hit straight on by the car infront of me. I'm not sure if you've ever witnessed a crash, but as you can imagine its quite horrific. Bike and boy (fishing rod as well) hit the drivers front window, smash it, bounce up in the
air, collapse on top of his car, then slide off onto the road. The driver braked and just seemed to stay there, sat inside, neither moving.

I shot out, ran to the boy who was amazingly moving around on the floor, I looked at the car wondering if the other driver was going to just floor it out of there. Leaving the boy I went to the driver to make sure he was alright as well. It was then I realised he wasn't going to try and run, the poor guy was just terrified. I assured him the lad was alright, and he
eventually left the car.

After the lad (whose name was Casper and looked like the milky bar kid.. a bullys wet dream) made it clear he was just shaken but alright, the driver started with the 'what the hell were you doing?' type of sympathy. In all fairness I'd have been fuming too, but I think he'd learnd his lesson. Anyhow, the driver tells me that his wife is in hospital and he's pretty much been there for the last few days, not slept etc... usually I'd be quite sceptical, but having seen the state of the man, more than just shock, I reckon there was probably a glimmer of truth in this.

Anyhow I got his adress, phone number, insurance, all that sort of stuff. I told him I'd sort it out, and off he toddled. So I asked a house opposite if they could look after the lads mangled bike (amazingly bloke that owned house said he'd try and fix it), had a look around for his missing shoe (that myth is true, he had lost a shoe in the crash and it was nowhere to
be found), then got him in the car so I could take him to the hospital. He completely refused this and insisted I take him home, after much pleading I agreed, figured I didn't want to upset him anymore and surely his parents would take him anyhow.

So I drive him home, park up, walk to his house to explain to his parents what had happened, I speak to his mum who was this angry East European lady, gave her the drivers details and explain about the hospital. She goes mad,probably more at him, but yelling at me as well, then has a go about his bike and his shoe, I suspect she actually thought I had hit him and wasn't really understanding my quite thick (at the time) Yorkshire accent, he wasn't helping either, generally storming around the place swearing about his shoe.

So with a mention of his father coming I skulked out, if his english was as bad as hers I reckon I would be plastered all over the walls before I got the chance to explain it wasn't me. Feeling a little deflated
I continued my journey to work. I'm a few hours late, I sign in, there a bit pissed off at me, obviously being a bank holiday they were short staffed.

I'm at work, start shift, radio is on. A story comes on the local news about a boy being hit by a car and having to be rushed to hospital, again that dread returns. Then the next report towards the end of my shift says that the young lad has died.

I get out, drive home, check the news straight away. It has a photo on there and thankfully (if thats right) it turned out that it wasn't Casper.

So Karma?

Got yelled at
Had my pay docked
I had my attendance/timekeeping bonus removed
Lost that job (didn't beleive my story)

In retrospect it was the best thing that ever happened to me, Chickens were not my chosen career and having to listen to David Gray all day on the shitty local radio was driving me insane

Guess it's good that Casper didn't die either, that would have really annoyed me

Length Apologies etc
(and semi relevance to QOTW noted)
(Snuffy114 demands a cyber razor cut, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 11:23, 3 replies)

turtlehead's answer...
made me think...

A number of years ago I started a relationship of sort with what one could say was a female...

she had the flaps and bumps in the anatomically correct places, and didnt need to shave her face too often - so I was muchio happy.

Of course after the flirtacious period of me not getting any action - and her simply emptying my pocket of its money beans on a regular basis I got somewhat distracted... and therefore paid attention to others of the chest bulge variety...

one evening, whilst speaking to said person over the mdeium that is MSN, a mention was made of a funny article on a website called b3ta.com... over a year later, I get rid of the blonde mop head, in rather a blunt and systematic way... but I am left forever with the addiction that is b3ta....

arse -

never did manage to get into its pants so length was never an issue
(feedingtimeatthezoo day 1 of his bikini diet started, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 11:20, Reply)

Karma?
I'm more of a Madras person myself.

Mullered.
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 11:16, Reply)

Does this count?
Whilst working in a hotel bar in Italy, I found a guests wallet on a sofa and chased him to the lift to give it back.

The next day he tipped me 100euros.

Extremely generous of him I thought.
( wanderlust, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 11:13, 1 reply)

Not karma as such...
I always find myself giggling at adverts for incontinence pads, so it can't be long now before the inevitable karma takes place....
(finbarr, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 11:10, 1 reply)

Forgot to add
Yeah i forgot to add her hair eventually looked a dried out mess, all streaky. Now she has this home dyed bottle blonde style, looks like the hooker she is.

I exptected the full Gail Porter style bald head but you cant have everything.

Was tempted to burn her gear in the back garden but she wasnt worth ruining the lawn and a knew she would go straight to the cops for criminal damage.
(mabazaritchie ...Its not rape if she cums first..., Fri 22 Feb 2008, 11:07, Reply)

Friday poop post.
I viewed and mocked and cast aspersions on the character of those starring in the bizarre spectacle that was a scatological video tape being passed around my circle of friends.

Lo and behold, but a few years later I am a proud father, yet perplexed at my compulsion and duty to be uncomfortably familiar with my childs bowel movements.

*wretch*
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 11:05, 3 replies)

St Anthony
I laughed at the badly preserved remains of St Anthony's teeth (the patron saint of accidents) at the basilica in Padua, and promptly slipped down the stone steps leading up to the display cabinet.

Fecker.
(finbarr, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 10:51, 5 replies)

Extreme but fair
A few years ago some girl i know was goin out with some ilegal brazilian imigrant dude for a few years. Didnt really meet him but they seemed to be goin strong. He was home sick so he decided he needed to go back to brazil for a bit, he took her with him for a few weeks to meet the family n stuff and the plan was he would come back to britain in a few months.

Anyway, she got home and a few days later she spoke to him on msn and he dumped her.. On msn!. Bit cowardly and harsh since they seemed to be doin fine... Anyway a few months later she bumped into one of his old mates.... Apparently brazilian dude had had a moped accident a little while ago and was now paralysed from the waste down..

Not really an equal dose of karma but maybe karma had been saving up for that one.
(Tony Coca Cola, Fri 22 Feb 2008, 10:47, 5 replies)