Not-So-Instant Karma

Karma may not always be instant – in fact, it rarely is. I received a dose of the stuff this past weekend as our home was christened by youthful nogoodniks bearing eggs (frightening the flax outta Kerry, who was next to the befouled window watching the bomb-diffusing scene in The English Patient).

So how exactly is this karma? Well ­ funny story, that.

Twenty-one years ago, almost to the day, my best friend A.S. and myself sported pre-teen crushes on best-friend classmates R.Y. and R.S., respectively. This is grade six mind you, with puberty on the horizon (very much unlike today's with-it, plugged-in 12-year-olds), so our primary tool at hand to show our affections – beyond teasing, of course – was egging their houses. Which we proceeded to do late one Friday evening.

The next morning, my family and I headed to the beach, as was our long-standing tradition at the time. So best friend A.S. spent a healthy portion of his morning solo, cleaning the eggs we hucked from the siding of R.Y.'s house. How did we get busted? Simple enough: we were 12 years old – sporting 12-year-old brains, getting recognized by R.Y. through the window.

I was never brought to justice for my part in this hideous crime, building sandcastles while my friend bore the terrible brunt. But karma found me, two decades later. And for this, I cleaned up a tidy mess outside our house on Sunday morning.

Moral of the story: don't egg houses ... of people you know (but buses remain fair game).