K.B. in Her Own Words: Instant Karma

This time of year when the roads of our fair city are covered with deep ruts of compacted ice and snow, drivers frequently find that their cars get stuck. Most folks passing by do the right thing and stop to help by giving a push. K.B. was famous for always giving a hand.

One day, however, she encountered a stuck driver who most definitely did NOT want her help. The story is best told in her own words, as she posted it on her own blog three years ago. I was the friend who appears in the story, and I can testify to its accuracy!

Instant Karma

"The title was suggested to me by a friend who was there for the whole of the story I’m about to tell you. I’m glad she was there for the weirdness. Why? Because sometimes I watch people shake their heads in disbelief as I answer truthfully when they ask something like “anything interesting happen today?”

When something that is odd for most people but seems par for the course for me happens it’s nice to have a witness. Or, as in this case, witnesses. I don’t think you can count the swearing person as a witness to her own craziness. And no doubt, in her mind she was the one encountering a crazy person. Certainly in this case that’s what the woman thought. So, on with the story!

The Girl and I were going to a tea with a friend on Saturday. The original plan was to meet there. En route to picking up The Girl, the friend that we were meeting called. She was stuck – or rather her car was – could we go to her place and help her get unstuck? Of course we could! Not only was she a friend, but this is Saskatchewan. There is an unwritten code here; you see someone stuck, you help get them unstuck. And not just because one day you too will be stuck in snow and require help. It’s just the done thing is all.

So I got The Girl and on we went. When we got to the alley behind my friend’s house, her car was just by her garage, well and truly stuck in the snow. The large expanses of snow-covered ice weren't helping the situation, but the main problem was definitely the snow bank the right front tire was buried in.

We tried pushing but it was clear that it needed shoveling and/or something to provide more traction on the ice. Stopping to decide what to do I noticed there was another car stuck further up the alley. So when our friend went to get a shovel, The Girl and I walked over and offered to help. And the woman who was stuck said “no thanks, ugly, I’ve got it covered”. And she stalked off. And I stood there trying to figure out what she’d said. Because it sure sounded like she’d just called us (or at least me) ugly. But that didn’t make sense. I don’t mean because I’m a beauty, I mean just as a reply to an offer of help it didn’t really make sense. Like someone asking you what you want for supper and saying “football game on the weekend”. The two just don’t go together. In the end, though, we just walked back to the car and she walked back to her house (she was stuck several houses away from her house).

She went into her house, slammed the door and in the clear cold air of winter we could hear her as she shouted “F***!!!!”. No mistaking THAT word, even muffled by being yelled inside a house. Now who knows what was behind that. Maybe she had a job interview that she was going to miss because she was stuck? But…why not get help, then? The Girl and I looked at each other, both a little puzzled. But with a shrug we just turned away.

Apparently, turning away was not the done thing, because the next second her back door slammed open and she screamed “Get a F******life!!”. And I do mean screamed, people. With the intensity of someone who has been harassed for weeks by people making her life a misery.

How odd, was my first thought. I mean, I have a life. There I was on a Saturday with my daughter and a friend, off for tea and some book shopping. Sounds like a life to me! I didn’t know what her day was like, though, so best to just leave her alone. (I have a co-worker whose mother was treated horribly for no apparent reason only to find out the next week- when the customer apologized - that the abuser’s wife had just died and he was getting donuts and such for everyone who had waited through the night with him at the hospital. He was beside himself with grief and hadn't meant to be so rude to her. So now I think twice or even three times when someone is rude to me for no apparent cause. Who knows what's going on in their life at that moment?)

Between shoveling snow away from one tire and putting kitty litter under the others my friend’s car did get unstuck. And despite the rudeness, I thought perhaps we should try one more time to help the swearing woman get unstuck. So The Girl and I walked towards her, and I said “kitty litter helped get this car out, maybe it would help with yours?” She did answer, and she didn’t swear which you would think was an improvement in relations. Not exactly; her reply was “you are MENTALLY ILL, go get some HELP”. Screamed at full volume. Naturally.

My first thought was that she was telling us that she was mentally ill. And didn’t want help. But she repeated herself, so her intentions were perfectly clear. The Girl and I, for offering to help get her car unstuck, were ill. Mentally ill. Clearly, only a madwoman offers to push a car out of a snow bank. Didn’t think I needed help, but I was willing to leave and at least get some tea. And maybe she would be able to get the car out some other way. Wait for spring, perhaps?

One other thing, the best bit of all, in a way: the title. Why instant Karma? It’s because when we told my friend about the first rebuff, she said that the woman only got stuck in the first place because she was taking great pains to NOT help my friend get unstuck and out of her way. She decided it would be better to go the long way around and not help. And that’s how she ended up stuck in the snow at the other end of the alley.

I was going to call the post “but I want to know the story” because that is what kills me about stuff like this. What was this woman’s problem? Why was she so angry? Why take it out on people trying to help? I hate not knowing the rest of the tale. But I’ll live with it. And hope that whatever was making her so unhappy got better. No one deserves to be that angry and unhappy all the time."