No such thing as Karma

Hurling is a very old Irish sport. Men run up and down a field with big wooden spoons trying to knock a ball into a goal or between uprights. The opportunities for jokes about this are staggering.

A coworker suggested we go see the hurling quarter finals at Croke Park one Saturday a few weeks ago.

I was vaguely familiar with the game -- about as much as you'd gather about a strange sport you see in a pub on the TV with the volume turned down.

Saturday morning I informed Riko that we were going to a hurling match that day. "Hurling?" She asked, "is that the one where they throw the big sticks?"

Not expecting her to know about hurling but nonetheless puzzled by her question I wondered, "Are you talking about the caber toss?"

"Oh. Yeah. I guess."

I gently explained to her that the caber toss is a competition exclusively among the Scottish peoples, and that Scotland is a whole different part of Ireland. I told her that hurling is kind of like lacrosse.

A few hours later we were in line to purchase tickets with several hundred other people and I said something about how I hope it's an exciting game or some such. Riko came back with another one.

"It's a game? How is it a game?"

"How is it not a game?!" Incredulous.

"Don't they just throw a really heavy ball?" She asked, innocently.

"Are you talking about shotput?"

"Oh. Yeah. I guess."

"Riko, you're just making this story better and better. I told you it's like lacrosse. They run around a field with sticks chasing a ball."

"Oh, that's lacrosse?"

What a gal!

Later, taking a pause from the game I made my way to the beer vendor to beat the crowds. Beer isn't allowed in the stands (!) so I was sipping my Carlsberg by a low wall. A fellow with his hands full with three cups of Guinness asked if he could put them down on the wall. He asked if I could look after them for a moment while he found his friends. I cheerfully agreed to help him.

Ten minutes later he returned, saying one of his friends didn't want a beer (!!) and asked if I'd like to have a Guinness. Again, I cheerfully agreed to help him.

Now, some people would call this karma, but I don't believe in it. It can't be real, because the universe cannot sustain the amount of "karmic" debt that I must have accumulated.