Whiplash Karma Department: I humiliate myself, twice!

Many decades ago, I learned that if I go out of integrity, then I receive instant feedback from the universe. The first time it happened (I had stolen a threadbare towel from a little motel during my impecunious days), I did it as a deliberate experiment. What would happen if I did that? Though I did need a second towel, obviously I could have picked one up at Goodwill.

When I arrived home, to my tiny basement apartment, I saw that a window had been smashed in and my CD player stolen. Wow!

What was my reaction? RELIEF. Yes. My experiment worked. I deliberately sent out of integrity by stealing the towel, and within hours, I received an eye-for-an-eye response from the universe.

Since that time, I haven’t needed to run that particular experiment again. I do learn! However, being “all too human,” of course there are times when my fiery Sagittarian Sun/Ascendant/Mars combo gets a bit too full of herself, and I find out via whiplash karma. Which is what happened here.

Two days ago, I posted what I now admit was a somewhat snarky post on MASKS, having been emboldened by Ben Garrison’s attitude, which I still thoroughly enjoy.

Then, yesterday, and again this morning, my egocentric stance was taken down a couple of notches. Enough? We’ll see:

One of the things I said in that post on masks was that “crones live from the inside out,” i.e., NOT the outside in, not worried about their reputation, what people think of them, etc. My aim was directed at the virtue -signaling and obedience to outside “authority” that masks often represent.

So . . . yesterday around noon, as I was rushing in the screen door, having forgotten my own bags on the way out to do errands (grocery store, bank and accountant) in my haste (another no no to learn from) I interrupted a bee’s flight. The bee stung me on the left side of the face, near my nose. What? Wow. Visions of childhood, when a bees sting on my foot made my foot swell enormously loomed into view. Am I still allergic? Hope not.

I put a paste of baking soda and water on the sting, and then left for the accountant’s office. BTW: I always carry the damn mask with me (worn six times so far, three into Menards, where masks are required, but not once in the past month or so), just in case I truly do need it for optics’ sake in this leftist academic town where most folks still seem glued to continuous fear mongering of mainstream news.

Okay, so I’m driving down the street, and wondering: should I put the mask on before the accountant’s office, so I don’t have to deal with them seeing the weird concoction on my face?

Yep, I had to laugh out loud at my own non-crone need to NOT live from the inside out, but instead from the outside in, worried what people would think of me. Yep. Bingo. Whiplash.

But, it turns out, that was nothin’ compared to what happened this morning on my daily four-mile walk with puppy Shadow.

Since I drink two full mugs of Ann’s Chai Elixir in the early morning, I always need to pee somewhere on my walk. (Oh and BTW: I discovered the other day that at least six of the fifteen ingredients in my chai elixir are antiviral!) Pre-Covid, I. could count on some building being open on campus. Then, during “lockdown,” I relished being able to pee just about anywhere in Dunn Woods on the deserted campus.

But I don’t always walk on campus. On another walk, I regularly pee in this one outside space behind buildings that are currently unoccupied (again due to Covid). Today I did that too, and, when I stood up, guess what? The left leg of my shorts was wet . . .

Oh no! Immediately, I both knew that this was also whiplash karma AND that I was horrified that I would be found out. “Little old lady wets her pants,” or something like that. Though I tried to ignore this social conditioning, it didn’t subside, in fact, got stronger as I wove my way home, trying like hell to walk in places where people in cars would NOT see me from behind and know that I wet my pants. All the while laughing to myself, even so. Both emotional reactiveness and detached witness to my own ezperience equally pervasive!

The hardest place was on the street where I live. Would a neighbor see me? Ommigod!

I did manage to get home “unseen” — I think! And then asked housemate Dan to please take a photo to memorialize the time when I thought I was so superior to others that I no longer “live from the outside in.” HA!

Serves me right! Mea culpa.