Karma Circle...

So I just read Uberstrickenfau's post on Karma and I got lost in a memory. I thought I'd share.

The only time I have ever flown first class was when I was in high school. I was visiting family in Mexico and the only flight that would put me back in the 'States before school started up again had only one open seat, in first class.

I was floored. My flying anxiety must have shown much more aggressively when I was younger (or had my evil doctor written a note?), cuz they let me board way first. Like 15 minutes before everyone else so I could get used to my seat, take my sedative (a benadryl derivative), and conk out. I was in the very first row, you know where back in the day you could park a sedan between the bulkhead and the first seat of first class? (This is important to my tale.)

So get this, as the rest of the people start boarding, I am already falling asleep, happy not to be aware that I'd be in a flying machine for the next four hours when some guy comes up and is standing in front of me and I wake up as he is talking to me. It might have been me on the benadryl, but I didn't think he was saying things in a nice way. Groggily I try to figure out what he is asking when another male voice asks this person to take his seat.

By this time I am fully awake and the drug had found a hole to hide in as the adrenaline and "fight or flight" instincts kick in. The steward/flight attendant then squats down in front of me and says, "The man I just sent to his seat wants to know if you would be willing to switch seats with him so he can sit with his wife." He looks to my right and there is a bone-chillingly scary woman (about my age, now) sitting next to me giving me the look of death!

"Well?!?" she says.

At this point this guy became my hero.

To her: "I remind you that the woman sitting next to your husband said she would switch seats."

"But that's in coach!" (I can not make this stuff up. It was the late 80s, we were flying from Guadalajara to LA, it might have been a famous rich person, I have NO IDEA, I was drugged, 'member?)

To me: "You paid for your seat, you are already settled in, this is completely voluntary on your part. If you would rather not move and want to just go back to sleep, you can."

Ah the gift of words. I said, "I'd rather not move." Steward-guy smiles at me as lady shoots up out of her seat and storms down to coach.

Both the man and the woman come back to get her things. As a parting shot the guy says, "You know, Karma is a bitch."

And being fully awake now, and fully pissed off as the realization hits me that I have no more drugs and the adrenaline is seeping away and this will be a horrible flight, I shoot back, "So how does it feel, coming back at you?"

Cuz my "punishment" was to spend the next four hours sitting next to a lovely granma-esque lady who had never flown first class and we talked and played with the warm hand towels, and she and the steward-guy pretty much kept me from remembering that I really really can't stand flying.

***
I'm sorry, Olga, that my most memorable karma moment doesn't end in the same vein as yours, but whenever people speak about the universe "course correcting"/balancing/giving what it takes, this tale reminds me that it's not always for the bad.

7/7/08 ETA : Remind me not to post anything before coffee, 'kay? Cuz the tenses for my story? ALL OVER THE PLACE! And I used ta' be an English teacher! HA!