Karma Cleanser - November 21 2001

Several years ago, I worked part-time at a local pizza joint. Biff was my supervisor, who I got along with very well. My co-worker Skip was a Bible-quoting, Boy-Scouting, goody-goody, so, needless to say, we didn’t get along too well at all.

One night, Biff and I were working and it was about 10 minutes shy of closing time. Skip called and said he was at a church lock-in and wanted some free pizza. I was tired, I had already broken down the make-line and I didn’t want to make any more pizza, especially if it was going out free to Skip, who was partying down (yeah, right) with all of his Christian buddies.

He begged, and I finally caved in and made the pizzas. But the notion that Skip would ask for free pizza so close to closing time irked both Biff and me. So, when the pizzas came out of the oven, we hocked up some of the biggest loogies and snot-balls we could muster and planted them right on top of the pizzas. You couldn’t really tell they were there. Skip finally showed up and wouldn’t you know it, he had two nuns along with him. They looked at the pizzas and said, “Boy, are we hungry! We could just eat these whole, right here and now!”

And I’m glad they didn’t. I wouldn’t have been able to keep a straight face. Skip and his nun friends left with their two spat-on pizzas and Biff and I just looked at each other, laughed and then decided that we were both going to hell for certain.

-- Special sauce

You’re not going to hell, you’re already there, trapped in a state of extended adolescence and a lifetime of wondering just what bodily fluids the kitchen staff secreted onto your food.

Karma Cleanser:

I recently met this excellent, shy, Christian man. He is intelligent and hard to come by. However, I am his polar opposite. I am a Buddhist (hence writing to YOU), and I smoke the occasional joint. He would shit and fall back in it if he knew this about me, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with an occasional “attitude adjustment.” Am I setting myself back karmatically?

-- Paranoid paramour

The issue here isn’t bad karma, it’s basic (in)compatibility. Don’t be so quick to judge Jesus Boy; sometimes polar opposites make the best dates. You’d best confess your spiritual outlook and stoner status now, though, before he discovers the bong in the Buddha statue.

Send confessions and questions about how to avoid karmic retribution to karma@creativeloafing.com, or to Karma Cleanser, Creative Loafing, 750 Willoughby Way, Atlanta, Ga. 30312. All entries are anonymous, of course.