more about karma

While I am on the subject... I am generally a believer in the theory of "you get back what you put out there". but more specifically, there are a few areas in which I am deeply committed to the the karma idea:

1. lost dog karma - just ask Mike, whenever I see a dog on the run that has a collar, I ALWAYS stop and at least try to call about it. I have hauled around a huge, stinky golden retriever in the back of my car while the veterinarian (the only number on the collar) tracked down the owner. Turns out, the owners lived right around the corner from where I found it. On another occasion, I stopped on my way to work in the morning, gotten no answer when I called the number on the collar, only to see a lady in a bathrobe running down the street, yelling at me to hold on to her dog! My finest moment however, was when I found a dog in our alley without a collar. The dog kept running up to the same yard over and over again, but no one was home when I knocked on the door. I must have knocked on about 30 doors in our neighborhood with no luck. I kept the dog in our bathroom while I went looking around the neighborhood. I should have trusted the dog - that yard he wanted in really was his (the owners showed up about 45 minutes into my search)

2. gum karma - if you throw gum on the ground, you will step in someone else's gum

3. "smile" karma - if you smile at someone for long enough, or enough times (assuming you don't come off as creepy), they will smile back at you. trust me, it is a proven theory in the dismissal carpool lane at the school where I teach

I am currently investigating the "leave your grocery cart in the middle of the parking lot as opposed to returning it to the cart-return things" karma - don't have a clear verdict yet