Karma and a Car Key

I’ll be right up front about this; I believe in karma. I believe that bad or mean people eventually (often at a frustratingly slow pace) get their comeuppance and good people, while sometimes following prey to bad people, circumstance or things, on balance, reap the rewards of being kind. Of course, I suppose “good” and “bad” are somewhat subjective and up to a matter of opinion, but I think most of us can kind of agree on the basic boundaries.

We’ve just subscribed to Apple TV and are deep into the first season of Ted Lasso and are having flashbacks to our addiction to Game of Thrones or Mad Men when we first learned first-hand about what it means to truly binge watch a television program. And, unless it takes a serious turn, Ted is a good person and a beacon of optimism that only makes a person smile.

I think that, on balance, we are good people. We try to help out friends, family and even strangers when we can. We try to be nice to people. We are typically friendly, if not outgoing without being obnoxiously so. So, in turn and to return to the topic, I think that at times we may be due some good luck and good karma.

Last week, we played a round of golf together. This is not a frequent event. I typically play solo, as my better half doesn’t share a passion for the game and can find a better use of four hours on most days. But she will join me from time to time and this meant that no one was home at our apartment, which will become increasingly obvious why that’s relevant later. We had a great, albeit very hot, round and day. Until…

Leaving the 18th green, I reached into my pocket with golf balls, tees, pencil, etc. and there was no car key. My heart sunk. I kicked myself. Hard. As I typically put my car key securely in the small pocket of my golf bag (and obsessively confirm it’s there several times per round, but that’s another matter entirely). But this time, I’d left it in the right front pocket of my shorts. I even recall feeling it in there on one of the holes and thinking, you should move that to a pocket you’re not reaching into for a tee or ball all the time. But. I didn’t. We furiously searched through all pockets, front and back and through the golf bags but I knew it was gone. Fallen like an autumn leaf out of my pocket as I carelessly and unknowingly plucked it out and dropped it while reaching for something else somewhere over the course of the last 18 holes.

We hopped back into our golf cart and tried to retrace steps. We went to every tee box, green or spot from which I’d taken a shot on most of the back nine, as I figured it probably happened later in the day. I even remembered looking down at one point around hole 14 or 15 or so and noticing a ball had tumbled out of my too-full pocket. Damn. It was to no avail. The car key was gone. And then I remembered that the key to the apartment was in the diligently locked car. Ugh. I fessed up and we stayed married and headed back to the clubhouse. Here’s where the good things started to happen.

The woman at the desk, Emanuela, bent over backwards to help us. This is unsurprising and not just because I’m a member at the club. This is very typical Portuguese behavior. I remember reading on a Facebook expat site just last week about the number of times people had lost a wallet or iPhone on the street, or the bus or the subway and had it returned to their possession not long afterwards. She gave us gratis beverages (it was very hot, and we had expended all of our water), called the police and then a locksmith for us. She left a note for the staff in case the key was returned, and she was not there (which is rare). She insisted that we store our golf clubs in the clubhouse since the car would not be lockable without a key, assuming the locksmith could get into it.

The locksmith was about to close, minutes later, but fortunately answered the phone and was able to come out and break into our car, after utilizing a host of devices, much trying and effort, to liberate our house key. I made plans with him to come to his office this week to get another spare car key made. Our ridiculously inexpensive Uber carried us home swiftly where the spare car key was where I expected it to be, locked securely away in our safe.

After washing away the sweat and grime of the day and the few bad memories, we toasted good customer service experiences and a, for the most part, good day.

Then, the true good karma kicked in. On our post-round quest for the key, I had found some black apparatus of some kind on the ground near where we had bought a Coke Zero from the refreshment cart. I still have no clue what it is or was, but I turned it in to Emanuela and said, at the time, “I have no idea what this is, but someone might want it and let’s hope this buys me a little good karma”. Well, I guess it (or something) did. The call from Emanuela came the next morning. A woman walking her dog had found our car key along a cart path and returned it to the shop. Joy rushed in. Waves of relief. A surge of happiness. Needle found in haystack. Hurray!

And so now I’m off to make more deposits in the good karma bank. Thank you Emanuela, dog walking woman and luck.