ometimes good karma is blatant and deserved and comes in the form of fortune and luck and is pretty clear to appreciate. Sometimes, however, it is not so obvious and manifests itself in other ways such as good deeds or, let's say... the Christmas Tree parking lot attendant.
Express mail envelope in hand, I rushed out the front door of my office building headed toward the post office - probably the second most frustrating place to be during the week preceding a major holiday. The wind was ripping at my face and I sped-walked to my truck, which I had, for the first time, parked in the side lot instead of the main lot. I was nearing the driver's side door when a man, bundled head to toe in Carhardt started silently flailing his arms in my direction from about 30 yards away.
I looked behind me. No one. I did a slight pan of the parking lot nearby. No one. I deduced that he had to be waving at me. I narrowed my eyes and cocked my head to the side in anticipation of some unexpected dialogue.
By the time he'd gotten over to me, he was breathing heavily and took a second to catch his breath while a weird smile crept across his lips.
"This your car?" he breathed, and uttered the phrase in a way that made it sound like a single word.
"Yeah..."
"Some lady backed into it." He braced for my reaction.
"Huh!" I said and started running my hand alongside the truck, searching for some evidence of a collision.
He reached out his hand toward the bumper and rubbed the salt residue off a small portion of it. "See, right here..."
My chrome bumper had definitely been hit. The image reflection of our faces were distorted due to the indentation.
"Crap," I said, surveying the damage, "Did she leave a note?"
"She wasn't going to," he said carefully, "But I asked her to."
"Oh, ok," I said, walking around to the front of the vehicle, where I saw a strip of paper tucked underneath the windshield wiper. I picked it up and it appeared to have been written on the seal part of an envelope, and written rather quickly. It said:
BUMP YOU CAR. NO DAMAGE. 740-xxx-xxxx
"No damage?!" I said, confrontationally.
"Yeah, well it's not up to her to decide whether there's damage or not, you know," he said reaching into his back pocket.
I just stared down at the paper. He was still figeting with his pocket.
I thought she might have given you a bogus number or something..." he started.
I looked up.
"...So I took down her license plate number when she wasn't looking," he said proudly, and handed me the scrap paper that bore a 7-digit plate number.
"Wow," I said, "Thank you so much, man."
"No problem," he said, "Have a great..." he paused, "Holiday."
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