What About Karma?

After a week at home for fall break, Bruce left for school again on Sunday morning. He forgot his dorm key, so in the late afternoon, Savannah and I drove to Salt Lake to meet him and give him his key. Just as we got back on the freeway, he called my cell phone. He had a flat tire. We got off at the next exit and returned to help him change his tire.

This made it so we were a half an hour later driving home and happened to put us getting off our exit right behind an old, green Chevrolet pickup. Immediately I could tell there was a problem. We were driving down a six-mile stretch of two-lane highway that is torn apart with construction and heavily-traveled. It's a mess and now, right in front of us, was a man swerving out of control. He hit a big construction pylon, causing it to spin into the road. Then he hit another one, throwing it twenty feet into the air before it landed just off the road.

Then my heart stopped. He headed directly into on-coming traffic and almost hit a mini-van before he swerved back into our lane. I called 9-1-1 and spent the next ten minutes on the phone with the dispatcher, updating her of our location and his movements. I was scared. I vividly remembered being hit head-on by a drunk driver several years ago in Colorado, an accident that changed our lives. As the driver in front of me swerved and veered into oncoming traffic time and again, my daughter and I feared we were going to see someone killed before the man was pulled over.

Eventually he was pulled over, admitted to being wasted, and was arrested. An officer met with me and I filed a police report. It was scary, stressful and I still have a tension headache I haven't been able to shake. But we did our civic duty, right? Of course right.

So why have we been punished since then? Monday night, my headache raging, Travis took the kids for ice cream for our family night treat. On the way home, he got a speeding ticket. The ridiculous thing about that is that Travis doesn't speed. He hasn't had a speeding ticket since he sold his prized muscle car to make a down payment on a house sixteen years ago. I'm the one that drives too fast. I'm the one with a new speeding ticket every couple of years. But Travis was cited for driving five miles over the speed limit. FIVE MILES! Couldn't they have given him a warning?

Then Tuesday morning, as I drove the kids to school, my heart sank. There was Travis, pulled over. I later found out he'd rolled through a stop sign--and they gave him another ticket. TWO TICKETS IN LESS THAN TWELVE HOURS? Right after I'd done my stressful civic duty.

Now I know there are no rules about karma--about when it comes and if families can share it's good vibes. But really? Would it have been so hard for karma to give us a break?

Please just let the same traffic school work for both tickets!