Flirting with Karma

Auntie Rachel, Cecilia and Ellen

Not too long ago, probably about 4 or 5 months after C was born, a woman whom I would call an acquaintance approached me with a grin on her face – the sort of grin that sets off my “Uh-oh Alarm.” About .5 seconds after she began talking, my alarm was justified.  “You know,” she began, “your new baby has changed your body in…many ways [as she looked me up and down]…but one way is that you’re taller.”

“Hmm,” I said, knowing that there’s no way that a pregnancy can add vertical inches, but excusing her misinformation because her own child-bearing years took place during the decades when pregnant women drank and smoked right up until they were lying on a hospital bed, and at that point putting the cigarette down was advisable merely because a contraction might cause her to drop it and burn the bed sheets. 

“Well, today I’m wearing my tall boots, so…maybe that has something to do with it,” I responded.

“I don’t know,” she said.  “You’re definitely taller.” 

Her next once-over reminded me that, to her estimation, my “extra height” was only one of “many ways” in which my baby changed my body.  I didn’t press her for more information, but just went ahead and assumed that she meant that before my baby I was a tad chubby and misshapen, but after my baby I became a paragon of health and wellness. 

Bottom line, though – hers was a comment that probably should’ve been run through the brain filter once or twice before coming out.  Even if she was not concerned about being rude, she might have been concerned about the whole “what goes around comes around” thing.  Definite karma flirt. 

Now, just a few days ago, I was reminded that my dear sister is a karma flirt as well.  She came over one afternoon, and Ellen informed her that Thomas the Train was missing, and that she wanted to look for him under the couch, but needed a flashlight and couldn’t find one.

“Do you know, Monkey,” she said to Ellen, “that your bum can be a flashlight.  If you toot it will shine even brighter.” 

I didn’t hear that part, but stepped out of Cecilia’s room to find Ellen crouched over by the couch with her pants and underwear around her ankles and her bare backside shoved up against the furniture, yelling, “I can’t get out a toot, Auntie, I can’t see ANYFING!” and my sister standing in a corner laughing so hard that she was doing the nose flare. 

Seeing as Rachel is having her first baby this July, she was really taking a risk with this one.  And her baby is a boy, so this may qualify as a blatant karma come-on, and not just a flirt.  Because I can think of something else that can be used inappropriately as a flashlight.  A much more realistic-looking one at that.           

Found him after all