The ABCs of Being an Army Wife… K

Karma.

Karma, karma, karma.

Big or little, good or bad, it goes like this: Every action has a reaction. Well, everything except for playing bongo drums when B Daddy is sleeping. No reaction at all. Notta one. And all Army wives know why. Say it with me. “If you can sleep in a Bradley, you can sleep anywhere.”

Anyway.

I am a big believer in karma. I am afraid of spiders. Because I don’t like them. I don’t like to share my space with them. But will I kill one? Nope. Why? Karma baby! Because I stomp one tiny little spider, and we all know what happens. While I am sleeping, it’s rather large distant cousin gives me the eight-legged stomp.

I believe in karma because I have to. I am scared not to. Because what if I don’t believe in it, but then it really exists? Kind of like Santa Claus. I was a worry wart as a kid. I had inner struggles with myself over Santa Claus. What if he existed, then didn’t leave me presents because I didn’t believe? What if he wasn’t real, and then when I had kids, I never gave them Santa presents, because I really thought he was real and then they had horrible childhoods?

Yeah. That is what I spent my childhood thinking about. I also thought those yellow reflectors down the center of the roads was braille for blind drivers. Just deal with it. At least I am a well adjusted adult.

I am not the perfect person. I am far from the worst. I am sure I do plenty of things that, in hindsight, I don’t want done to me. But I try really hard to be a nice person. I know, ‘nice bitch’ is an oxymoron.

The main reason I try to be nice is not really because I want to be, but because I am scared of karma. Not only do I believe in cosmic paybacks, but I think they come in tenfold.

As such, karma is unviersal. It does not care if you are black or white. Big or small. A private or a general. A private’s wife or a general’s wife.

Which brings me to my question. If karma exists, why does it seem that people’s behavior deteriorates with power? Does power make karma less painful?

I know this happens in all walks of life. In all careers. But in the Army, it seems more prevelant. Maybe it is because we are so smooshed in to a small area.

Men will tell you that it is just women. When you get a lot (according to my husband, a lot consists of me plus one) of women together, we start to get catty. And following strength in numbers, if there are lots and lots (meaning 3 or more in B Daddy math), we are almost unbearable. Scratch the ‘almost’. B Daddy actually had to tell me, in the middle of the movie theater, to quit being catty. Of course I burst in to tears and made him feel bad.

And then, one day, I got my feelings hurt. For real. And B Daddy didn’t take my side. It was the girl who cried wolf. It was karma.

Karma I tell you. She’s a bitch.

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