A Possible Corollary?

Funny yet sorta eerie story about what happened to me Saturday and maybe an immediate strike of karma, or sign from God, or something else scary and unexplainable:

This actually starts Friday, when I took a box of Pop-Tarts to the Osco cashier along with a basket full of other groceries and he set the Pop-Tarts aside in order to ring up everything else and forgot about the Pop-Tarts. I got home and noticed the missing box, but when I checked the receipt it wasn't on there, so he never charged me anyway. No harm, no foul. So I went back to the Osco after work Saturday to buy the Pop-Tarts that I was feening for. The guy who was my cashier Friday saw me shopping and said that he remembered me and that I left my Pop-Tarts and something else, to which I replied, "Maybe some juice," and he agreed with me. I did buy a few bottles of juice, but I had all of them when I got home. I just said it because I wanted him to think that he forgot to put that in my bag too. He told me to let the woman working the register know when I got up there, and I wouldn't be charged for my Pop-Tarts and another bottle of juice. I said okay and even got his name so that I wouldn't have any hassle from her when I pulled my scam. But while waiting in line, I had a change of heart and decided that I didn't want to pull off the scam after all. I got in a bit of an argument with the little voice in my head trying to tell me that I would be a moron not to go through with it before compromising and deciding that I would pull off the scam anyway if the guy came to the register and told the cashier about the situation. I justified it by saying that it would be rude to not let the guy do what he thought was a good deed. But really, I knew that I was being a snake by not speaking up and telling the truth. Well, the guy did just that when I got to the counter, and I allowed it to happen and walked out with my free groceries feeling more ashamed of this minor theft than I ever thought I would. But I didn't turn around and fix things, I just got on my bus and headed home.

I have been very tired lately, so I usually doze off on the way home, and when I do that, I have my arm extended against the window so that I can set my Walkman on top of my forearm in order to get a good reception on the AM dial and listen to sports talk radio. This bus hung a hard right turn, and the apparently loose emergency lock on my window broke free. So in my sleepy daze, my arm pushed the window wide open, and my Walkman went flying off my arm and onto the street. I let out a girlish shriek at the shock of what happened, and then I had to wait for the bus to drive a block to the next bus stop before I could get off and retrieve my beloved old-school Walkman. But it was too late. When I made it back to the spot where we turned, someone had already ran over it, and the thing was lying in the middle of the street, flatter than a pancake. Two things survived this accident, however. One was the battery. Amazingly, I was able to open the destroyed personal stereo and retrieve my rechargeable battery, ever so slightly dented at one end but otherwise just fine. The other item that survived was the cassette tape that I was listening to that day, because the Walkman must have popped open upon hitting the ground and spit my cassette out. The tape was lying a few feet away from the flattened Walkman unharmed. If this whole scene was some sign from God, it was a very ironic sign, because of exactly what tape I happened to have that day.

It was Black Sabbath.

Now I'm totally fucked in the head, because I'm thinking, if this was God telling me to stop being a dick and always do the right thing, wouldn't He have spared the Walkman and gleefully destroyed the Black Sabbath tape?? Or was it just bad karma? Or am I reading way too much into the whole damn thing, as usual? I do know this much: In all my years of having a Walkman, almost every day of my life starting in eighth grade, I have never had something like this happen. I've dropped it a million times, on occasion near sewer grates and other assorted holes in the ground, I've banged it against walls, I even tried to change my batteries once while standing on an elevated platform, and I dropped a battery onto the street several stories below, but I've never had a Walkman destroyed like this. And I know one more thing: I'm holding my next Walkman in my hand at all times and getting the best reception I can in that manner, and if it's not a good reception, I'll just have to live with it.

Boy, the shit that happens to me...