Karma Cleanser - October 17 2007

Dear Karma Cleanser:

Today, I got a wild hair and went up to the corner store. I purchased some beer and cigarettes and a few other miscellaneous items. I handed the clerk a $100 bill and she gave me back $96 in change. In other words, her drawer is going to be about $18 short.

I noticed it at the time but when she double-checked my receipt and gave me the go-ahead to leave, I did so without saying anything.

I feel really bad about this now. Granted, I’m the one in the unemployment line at the moment and I could use a break here and there, but I’m fearful she will lose her job. Is the universe cutting me some slack or am I in karmic doo-doo for this?

– – The Wicked

Let this incident be a wake-up call to you. Not about honesty – you can write off the cashier’s error as a small cosmic windfall – but about how you’re spending the time and money you do have. If you’re unemployed, should you really be blowing cash on beer and smokes? We won’t ask how you came across the $100.

Dear Karma Cleanser:

It’s the start of a new year at school, and I’m doing something radical to start the semester. I have decided to purge my friends. I am revisiting all the people I hang around with and scaling down to just the ones I really like. The ones who annoy me are getting the axe.

My first step was a thorough cleaning of my Facebook account. I didn’t make a fuss about it, but I quietly unfriended about 15 people last night. I don’t think many of them will notice.

So where’s the problem? In cleaning out Facebook, I noticed that some other friends had already unfriended me. Some of them were people I really liked. I was pissed when I discovered this.

Please tell me that this is just karma and that I shouldn’t worry that it’s all going to come around and bite me. I’m worried that I’ve now set some chain of events in motion that’s going to leave me sitting alone in my room on a Saturday night.

– – Reformed Cheerleader

Some people do their house cleaning in the springtime. You’re doing yours in the fall. Where’s the harm in that? If you’re going to ditch a few Facebook connections, expect other tidy-minded contacts to do the same. You can’t take it personally. If someone should notice that you’ve unceremoniously dumped their friendship, you can always blame it on the technology. Purging people in the non-Facebook world – that is, reality – is another story. We believe that people come into our lives with a message from the universe to share with us. Sometimes the most annoying, contrarian and otherwise obstinate people have the most relevant lessons for us. Lose only those individuals who you are certain have nothing left to teach you about friendship.

Been bad? karmacleanser@gmail.com