Greg's Blurty

Karma Is Just Another Scam
This is the day that finally did it. I have totally, completely, utterly, now and forever given up on the idea of Karma. You know, that quaint, false, 100% made up work of preposterous fiction that makes the typical tax return look like a paragon of integrity that states if you do good things for others, good things will return to you. Yeah, that one.

And this isn't easy for me. I am the most upbeat, positive, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, the glass is half full, singin' in the rain while the raindrops keep falling on my head but that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red kind of person who has ever lived. But today was too much and I hereby declare Karma to be just another scam!

Look at me. I do everything right! I treat everyone right! I do all the right things! Always! People, plants, animals, even inanimate objects, I treat them all as they would want to be treated and how I want to be treated. I don't even complain about all the calls from Mother Teresa begging for me advice on how to be a Saint! I even joyfully let her reverse the charges---it costs a lot more now than when she lived in India, whew! Talk about a long distance call, but do I complain about that?

NO! And where does it get me? How is all this good Karma returned to me? Am I showered in good fortune, adulation and love? That's what should be happening but it never quite works like that. Take today, for example. The day that tore my unbreakable spirit in two and shredded my indestructible positive outlook.

Fifi, my Sommelier, came to me and said that she wanted more room behind the bar and more space in the wine cellar. She wanted to remove a wall and get rid of a closet that we never use anyway and just extend the bar and back bar and then put up a few extra racks in the wine cellar. I considered that for a moment and it said it was a great idea...for a girl.

I then called my Head Architect, Clerestori and told her to bring her sketchpad. I then proceeded to dictate what I must say---with all due modesty, I might add---is the best idea I've had in the last 36 hours, which makes it the best idea anyone has ever had anytime, anywhere.

It was a magnificent fifty story addition to the bar area themed like a tree house. Fifi got her additional bar space, fifty stories worth, and all of us got a terrific brand new vertical drinking environment on fifty different levels all connected with stairs, elevators, ladders, rope ladders, slides, vines, trap doors, trampolines, water slides, fire poles and rock climbing walls.

In short--with all due modesty---it was the greatest idea ever thought of. Until I had my next idea. I told Clerestori to get the machines they used to dig the Chunnel and use them to connect our wine cellar with The Napa Valley, since that's where all the good wine comes from anyway and it would slash transportation costs while at the same time giving Fifi lots of extra storage space. Then I told her to keep going till she gets to Europe since I really don't like wine all that much but I really dig Heineken and why shouldn't I have direct access to the brewery?

Everything was going like clockwork. The sketches were giving way to blue prints and we were practically ready for the groundbreaking ceremony...I was even picking out some of the accessories we'd need like the new juke boxes, pool tables, slot machines, video games and the ceremonial G-strings the dancers would wear on opening night and then...

Do I even have to say what happened next? I suppose so, since this is as much for posterity as it is for you, not that it will matter, because posterity never learns from the mistakes of the past but at least it sets me up to say, "I told you so!" Anyway, the next thing that happened is that Suzette, my Chef De Cuisine and Chief Executive Vice President In Charge Of Domestic Bliss walked in and ruined everything.

She looked at the sketches and said it was absurd. Then she said it would homicidal madness to serve people liquor and then subject them to fifty stories of death laden rope ladders, fire poles, trap doors and trampolines. I didn't get mad. It's not her fault she's old---when she tells you her age, take it with a grain of salt because by my count, this will be the fourth time she's been 25---and I understand senility and I'm sensitive to it.

So I told her to go knit a sweater and mind her own business. And she told me---well, you know how senile people are...sort of like George Carlin, except not as calm and easy going and more vulgar. And not nearly as funny or reasonable. George never once said that I couldn't build a fifty story bar. I'm even confident that he would have loved the idea of drunks trying to navigate 500 feet of homicidal madness.

So I tried to reason with her. I said, "Don't you see that this is what the Jungle Room should have been? Don't you remember all those parties at Graceland? Oh yeah, you weren't even born yet, and now you're trying to tell me how to design a party space?" And she said---oh, what does it matter? Let's just cut to the sad unhappy ending: I don't get my fifty story bar OR even a wine cellar that goes to Europe!

So that's the reward for being perfect. The big payoff for being flawless. So that's it, you can either be a Saint like me and get nothing or you can raise an army, conquer half the world and open a chain of concentration camps and then end up in a bunker with nothing---THANKS FOR ALL THE CHOICES, GOD!!!!!! (And thanks Sam, for that apt quote) And that's why I no longer believe in Karma.

Current Mood: depressed
Current Music: Coast To Coast AM----Sunday July 6th, 2008