Karmic Retribution

Mark started high school a couple months ago. Coincidentally, that's also the time he amped up his snarky teenage attitude. He's perfected the art of snarling under his breath, talking back to me at every opportunity, and, inevitably, stomping out of the room because how else can he deal with such an idiotic mother? 

Of course, he can also immediately reverse that attitude from surly to charming as necessary. Those moments usually preface requests for money or permission to attend an extracurricular activity (which requires money). It's gotten so bad that whenever Mark's nice, I automatically sigh and pull out my wallet. (Or sometimes, when I've had enough, I don't.)

But Friday morning, I'd had it. I'd been awake all of 10 minutes, and I'd already checked Mark's blood sugar, fed him his morning breakfast shake, helpfully opened his blinds, and gently encouraged him to wake up.

"Time for school!" I said, as cheerfully as I could muster. (Which is not much, at 6:20 a.m.)

Mark immediately and angrily rolled over, slammed off the lights, and screamed at me to shut the blinds.

"I'm trying to sleep here!" he yelled. "Geez...back off!"

And that woke me up a little bit. My eyes opened, my jaw clenched, and my fists tightened. I envisioned wrapping Mark a little tighter in that blanket, at least enough so that he couldn't talk. But then I took a deep breath and left. I figured the best thing I could do was give myself space.

I took three short steps across the hall, into the bathroom. Physically it wasn't much distance, but now there was a door between me and Mark, and that was just enough to keep him alive a little bit longer.

I was still steaming, though. I'm not a morning person, and I hadn't even had my coffee yet. Under better circumstances (i.e., any time after 11 a.m.), I'd ignore bratty Mark. But waking up to that--it's a lot harder. My brain wasn't coherent enough to have rational thoughts, let alone patience.

I turned on the shower. As I did, I accidentally brushed the bath towels next to it.

Suddenly, something fell from Mark's towel. It dropped to the ground, where it wriggled, and my instincts kicked in. I grabbed some toilet paper and squished the darn thing.

It was a spider--a big one. A big, black, squished spider, who'd just suffered an untimely death. 

At first, I felt kinda bad. I try not to kill spiders (except black widows--they're fair game!) but this one caught me off guard.

Then I felt relief--glad the spider fell when I was in the bathroom, and not Mark. Because Mark is deathly afraid of spiders. He totally freaks out when he sees them.

And then, suddenly, I felt...giddy. I giggled to myself, because it was funny that the spider fell out of Mark's towel. Well, a good and proper mom might not think it was funny, but a newly-awakened mom who'd already been disrespected...well, it was pretty funny to that mom.

It was funny because here I was, feeling defeated and insulted, and the universe kinda winked at me. 

"Wanna see something?" the universe whispered to me, before unleashing the very thing that scares my snarky kid the most--an eight-legged dose of karma. And it helped immensely!

I knew I could never tell Mark. He'd flip out and refuse to shower or dry off ever again. But it was okay--I didn't need to tell Mark anyway--it was enough that I saw the spider, that I got the message. The universe saw I'd been wronged, and righted it. 

I felt validated. But just to be sure, I shook out my own towel before using it. ;-)