Karma, Fate, Chance- What the Crap?

Sure, the title of this post's a real downer. But there's really no other way to title what I'm feeling right about now. For those of you who like posts with pictures, sorry to dissapoint. I just can't bear to look at the offending item, let alone take a picture of it. Anyways, I'd better explain. But first let me say that you know it's bad when I'm supposed to be packing for Bear Lake right now; in fact it's 12:30am and we're leaving in about nine hours, and I still have three loads of laundry to do plus pack the bags and load up the car. That's bad, even for me who just so happens to be the world's biggest procrastinator. For those who know me well, you know I do my best work and come up with my most creative ideas in the middle of the night. So what's the problem? I can't seem to focus my mind enough to get started because I'm so dang bummed out (if you have a weak stomach for mormon swearing, stop reading now, because it'll probably get worse). So back to the story. All my life I've had a tendency toward bad luck. I'm sure that might be a little over dramatic, because I really can't remember how young I was when it hit, so let's just say high school- or puberty, or whatever. Anyways, bad stinking, flipping luck. I'm really not making this stuff up, people, It's the truth. I've never won a darn thing except some stickers from KMA once, but of all the prizes they were giving away, those were the only thing I already had. I came close once when my name was drawn at my high school graduation party for a pair of tennis rackets, but I had left five minutes earlier, so the announcer decided to give them to someone else (thanks again for that, Mom, and stop rolling your eyes). Now, you'll find it quite interesting that my big, obnoxious brother is my anti. He's the yin and I'm the yang, or whichever one of them's the bad one. He's super lucky and wins every contest he enters practically. This magic has rubbed off on his wife who, being linked to him eternally, wins everything too. Need some examples? Okay. Once she won an all expense paid ski trip off of the radio. I was personally with her at a scrapbook overnighter when they were giving away an awesome scrapbook bag, and she called my brother on the phone for luck as they were doing the drawing. Yep, her name was called. Icing on the cake- last week they won a front loading washer and dryer pair from a shop-ko contest. That doesn't even count all the work drawings my brother has won, including a home theatre surround sound system. If it sounds like I'm jealous, that's because I am. But that's not the point, so back to my rotten (insert your own mormon swear word here) karma. Did you know that almost everything I buy or that's bought for me is defective? Not kidding here. It's almost funny now- okay, not really. I'll get the camera that doesn't work or the DVD/VCR combo where the DVD part will instantly stop working after just three months- the instant the in-store warranty is void. Redbox hates me, too. I always get the scratched DVDs, and there's no way to trade them for good ones. Sometimes fate is really mean, and it will trick me by letting me think the tide has turned. I'll find the perfect dress on a killer clearance sale, only two left in my size! Wow, how lucky was that? Then I'll get home and find a hole that I swear wasn't there when I examined it in the store. I'll race back to the store to switch it, but sure enough, the last one was just sold minutes before I arrived. And yes, I do hit almost every stop light red, except when my husband is tending all the kids and I want to get home slowly. Then they'll magically all be green. My good friend told me we could control our karma with positive thinking. She says "I'm going to get a front row parking space" and sure enough, she does. I tried that. It didn't work for me. I almost had karma fooled with that one when I started carrying a bottle of finger nail polish in the car. I would hold it in my hand, and if the light went red, I shrugged and painted a nail or two so as to not waste the time. Magically, the lights started turning green. I would snicker to myself as this was the actual goal, but karma didn't really know that. Until it figured it out. Then the lights were back to red. My nails would all get painted pretty quick, then I'd just be annoyed all over again by those red blasted delays. Smart karma, dumb me. These are actual stories, people, not made up or embellished in any way. But enough of that. By this time you're either very entertained at my misfortunes, or very bored. So on to my last straw. When people say bad luck comes in threes, I believe them. Here's my week- first, I lose a shop-ko gift card. The balance on it isn't super high, but I'm still bummed about it. Not only am I out a potential new pair of shop-ko/payless shoes (stop laughing- I like payless shoes) or a few economy sized packages of toilet paper, but I hate losing things period. It drives my OCD mind half crazy wondering what happened to the missing item, and I'll literally spend all day tearing apart my house searching. Second, the six-changer CD player goes out in my Expedition. Just before my trip to Bear Lake, where half the trip is out of range for radio, so CDs are all I can listen to. Not to mention that's not cheap to fix. Last but not least, the icing on this whole freaking cake of bad luck. My daughter's blessing dress. My beautiful little Maycie's beautiful, 100% silk blessing dress. It's been hanging from a cute flower hook on the wall in her room for the last many months, and it looks so pretty with the decor. I must say, Maycie's room is darling- straight out of a catalog darling. But just when I finally find the exact curtains I've been looking for to compliment the room, the last touch to make everything perfect, I get a hair-brained idea to take Maycie's dress to the cleaners to remove a microscopically small faint spot. I was nervous about it and asked the cleaner lady for reasurrance, even though the tag does say to dry clean it. She tells me they do wedding, blessing, and all sorts of special occasion dresses all the time, no problem. Well, I picked the dress up today. I can't even think of a humorous way to write this, so I'll simply say it's ruined. The white silk is now yellow. I'm really not exaggerating- it's not off-white or even cream, it's just yellow. I cried on my husband's shoulder for a half hour, and he told me we could buy another one exactly like it to save for Maycie someday. My Mom gave me my blessing dress, and I wanted to give each of my girls their blessing dresses, too. Even if I did replace it with an exact replica, it wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't be the dress she was blessed in. Let's stop here for just a second, now. If you weren't sympathetic with my whining earlier, I'm sure you must feel a little badly for me now. This just sucks. The problem is, it gets worse. How? Well, just read on. I bought Maycie's dress from a little shop in Kaysville. My Mother-in-law loved it and purchased one exactly like it to display in her blanket shop. Her dress has been sitting there under a plastic cover for the last year. If you're thinking, "Yay! Silver lining! She can just buy the one from her mother-in-law to save for Maycie" that's what I thought too. So after I finished crying, I called her. Fate hates me. She told me she sold the dress a couple of weeks ago. Not only that, but the shop the dresses came from went out of business a few months ago. I can't stand any more. I've had all I can take. We're taught that every person is given their own trials, and is tested to their limit. How do I let fate, karma, or whatever know that I've way passed my limit with this? They say the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, but I'd sure as heck trade my bad luck with a good case of gout, some stinking kidney stones, or an accident involving a nail gun and a few of my body parts. At least you eventually get over those. I must have been a royal pain-in-the-butt in our past life to have earned this, or maybe I was just really stupid when we picked out which trials to stand in line for. Either way, I just don't think you can chalk it all up to chance. Oh, well. I feel a little better now after getting this all off my chest, so if any of you actually finished reading this, thanks for listening. If you didn't, that's okay- just say that you did. Now I guess I can finally start packing for that Bear Lake trip; hopefully nothing else goes wrong there. On that note, if any of you have an in with karma, maybe you could put in a good word for me- I could sure use a little bit of a break right about now.