Comedy And Funny Stories: My Funny Story About Payback And Karma

When I was a kid, as I have confessed before, I had a few problems.  That might be putting it mildly to be honest. I resented not being 'perfect' like my younger sister and I really got tired of being blamed for everything.

Of course, looking back on it, guilty is as guilty does and I probably deserved most of the blame thrown my way by my grandmother.  She was pretty much raising us while my mother worked.  I might add for those of you who don't know, she was our schizophrenic grandmother.  She could have whole conversations with some guy who wasn't there and she regularly mistook me for him at the most inopportune times.

That said, I did what I thought might make me feel better I suppose and which is really how I feel bullying gets started. I felt picked on or ticked off at what life gave me sometimes so I took it out on who I could and who coincidentally was next in line.....my little sister.

It didn't help much that she was such an easy mark. She never stood up to me or anyone and she never seemed to figure out that I was going to prank her. I would defend her mightily to my death if need be but somehow I couldn't quite resist scaring her.  I really didn't too many evil things to her, but scare her I did at each and every opportunity.

My favorite attempt to scare the living daylights out of her all started one day when she got chosen by my grandmother to go to the store to get groceries. I don't know what I'd done that day but something obviously bad enough to be made to stay home....so off skipped my sister Dorea with a smug smile perfectly in place on her perfect little face. "Ha I thought - we'll see who's smiling later, sis!"

I calmly plotted my strategy and waited for her return....behind the short hedge row of bushes that separated our property from the house next door. I didn't have long to wait before I heard her skipping down the sidewalk towards home clutching her bag of groceries. I reared up from behind the hedge and went into my best impression of a monster (it was after all just before dark). And I watched with glee as she tossed the bag of groceries high into the air, screamed at the top of her lungs and went screaming and crying into the house.

Too bad I hadn't quite thought this one through all the way (how unusual). Standing right behind me happened to be one EXTREMELY ticked off schizophrenic grandmother who had seen the whole thing and was pointing quite knowingly at the carton of eggs that were now broken and lying in the gutter. I took one good look before she swung the broom and it met up with my thick head. Ooops - not one of my best plans.

I'm sure you can see by this one story, however, that I was totally justified in trying to prank her at every turn, right? Of course not, but I did a pretty good job of convincing myself that she had it coming. Obviously, raising me was quite a strain on my grandmother who came into her job at the young age of 65. She was by now into her early 70's and not having the time of her life no doubt.

My mother taught piano lessons for a living in people's homes so was on the road a lot traveling hither and yon (mostly yon) wherever the lessons took her. Every once in a while, she would give my grandmother a respite on a Saturday and take either just me or both of us along, I suppose in retrospect to give her mother a few moments of quiet time or more time to talk with her imaginery friends!

I'm not sure why, but the rules were always spelled out this way to us both. We were not to under ANY circumstances ask to use her students' restrooms. If we were dying to go to the bathroom, come hell or high water so to speak, we were to hold it and wait until we left and she could take us to a service station to use the facilities. She felt that somehow this request to use someone's restroom was in severely poor taste, so Dorea and I learned at a young age to just not drink much liquids on our sojourns with my mom and hope we could last as long as it took.

My mother also had a fetish. We could only use Standard gas stations restrooms. No Shell station restroom was good enough for us so just get over it! We quickly figured out that that was just the way things were. On one such Saturday, we'd been to a couple of students' homes and were on our customary trip to the good old Standard station where we would bolt from the car and use the restroom. I was hatching my plan as we neared the station.

I began in earnest to protest "I have to go, I have to go!!!" to which my mother retorted something along the lines of "I'm going as fast as I can!" When she finally brought the car to a halt, I jumped from the car as if I truly was going to wet my pants (which was all just a coverup of course) and sprinted towards the restroom door.

Once inside, I carried out by diabolical plan which was to jump up onto the toilet seat and lay in wait for my poor, stupid, unsuspecting little sister to walk in and open the door, whereupon I was going to scream like a monster and scare the living daylights out of her. Great plan if I do say so myself. I'd had just about enough of her polyanna existence for one week and she had it coming by George!

So with that plan firmly fixed in my pea brain (or pee brain as it were), I threw back the stall door, jumped up onto the toilet seat and prepared to take my position. Unfortunately, I screamed bloody murder (literally) as my nose came into contact with an extremely sharp, shelf-like, immovable metal object.

I saw stars, I saw blood - MINE. I never was famous for handling the sight of my own blood and as I felt it spurting out of the cut on the bridge of my nose, suddenly the toilet seat beneath me began to move in circles.

This was not good. What in the name of all that's holy had gone wrong with my plan???

I still can't believe my luck to this day. Okay really? Who in their right freaking mind puts a PURSE shelf above a toilet? Someone is really going to set their purse up there and then sit down to do their business? Oh My GOD! This shelf was big enough for someone to put a suitcase on!

And how come I had never seen one of these before? What was I, born under a toilet truck?

Well, my nose is absolutely killing me about now and the blood is trickling down my face. I'm starting to get nauseated because it really hurts. I'm wondering if I broke my nose or something or oh god - will I need a tetanus shot now???? Or STITCHES?

While I'm lost in my bathroom reverie, the bathroom door swings open and in marches my mother with my little sister in tow. "What in the blazes is going on in here? You've been in here a while - what are you DOING?"

I gingerly step off the toilet seat and open the stall door and then begin crying about how my nose is killing me. My mother takes one look at the blood and the cut and starts shouting 'What in the Sam hell did you DO? How could you have done something like that by sitting on the toilet?"

Of course about this time, little Ms. Perfect steps closer to the stall and looks up - and points at the shelf (which unfortunately incriminatingly has my blood on it - and probably a hunk of my nose to boot). The little Benedict Arnold just stands there looking all innocent. "Mommy, I know what she was doing - she got up there so she could jump out and scare me when I came through the door."

Of all the moronic nitwits I could have as a sister, she had to take the cake. Thanks for ratting me out, idiot. Don't you think it's bad enough that I've got a 2-inch razor cut on the bridge of my nose to show for all my efforts? Or maybe I'm lucky and will have a brain hemorrhage after I shoved my nose back into my brain. That's what I get for screwing around!

Breaking into my thoughts I hear my mother say as sternly as usual "So is this true, Audrea?" (she always calls me that no matter how I ask to be called Audrey but after all this is my name.... we were named after the Andrea Doria - oh THAT had such a good ending).

I may be a lot of things but a liar has never been one of them so of course I confessed. What else could I do? I was bleeding from the nose and I was seriously starting to see 2 of everything. I was hoping that I didn't get 2 black eyes to go with the attractive nasal cut.

I just ever so subtly nodded my head and said "I guess so" under my breath. "You GUESS so?" she screams back at me and I began to cry in earnest. Seriously folks....one of the worst injuries in the world is one to your nose. Does anything hurt quite that much?  Maybe a good kick in the privates but come on!~!! And why in the name of heaven is she screaming?

Whew....at last she stopped with the Spanish inquisition and decided to forgive me after all, so helped me clean up and get back to some semblance of normal. All the while I was very aware of my sister standing there smirking while she clung to my mom's leg. "Ah well, look out pal, there's another time and another day."

Believe it or not, I did learn from that very painful experience. While I had thought ahead for instance to the possibility that I could slip off the toilet seat and get my shoes and socks wet when I fell into the toilet bowl, I certainly NEVER in my wildest dreams thought that I would try to saw my nose off to spite my face so to speak.

I never forgot that little escapade and I guarantee you I never did that again. As a matter of fact, sometimes going into a public restroom bathroom stall makes me shiver. I always look around for sharp objects just in case.

I eventually also did quit scaring my sister. I guess you could say I grew out of it. Of course, I always look back on this particular episode and think very succinctly 'payback's a bitch'. It could not have been more true than on this day.

It also reared its ugly head years later when my oldest son pranked me by trying to scare me. Again that phrase came to mind and a little voice said as well "Don't you think you had that coming, Audrea?"

We'll save that story for another day. Suffice it to say today I do regret (mostly) all the times that I scared the living daylights out of her. I also deeply regret that I got my dose of payback and karma though it probably saved me from a further life of crime.