Dear Karma Cleanser:
I have an evil cousin and there’s no love lost between us. I also have a younger sister who I adore. My sister is a pretty loving accepting human and is one of the few people who seems to genuinely care for our nasty cousin. As a result, my sister mistakenly considers our cousin one of her best friends.
A few months ago I found out our cousin had been sleeping with my sister’s ex-boyfriend behind her back. My initial reaction was to tell my sister in hopes that she would finally see how heartless and screwed up our cousin is. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt that if I did that I would be the one causing my sister pain because I would be the one who dropped the bomb.
I have tried to let this go and just know that our cousin will get hers in the end because people can’t continually keep doing mean things without any consequence. I don’t know if I should say anything and deal with my own consequences or just keep letting the knowledge drive me nuts. Any suggestions?
—— Conflicted Karma
Why is it any of your sister’s business who her ex is sleeping with? Had you discovered that the cousin was making mad monkeysex with your sister’s current boyfriend, then you might have a case. Otherwise, you’d best take the TomKat approach and keep your little Suri, er, secret out of sight.
Dear Karma Cleanser:
This is a hard one. I am a Buddhist, or at least I follow many Buddhist ideas in my life. I am also a teacher in a Christian home for developmentally challenged adults. This summer we’ve had a problem with mice coming into our home. The mice are adorable, little gray field critters who don’t do any harm to anyone. However, the other teachers in our facility get very upset when they see them. The maintenance man came and put a mouse trap in the closet of my classroom. I threw it away, because I follow the Buddhist philosophy not to take lives.
When another teacher saw this, she told my boss about it and I got into trouble. I feel badly about the mice who will die because of the new trap (another one was put back in place of the one I threw away), but what can I do?
—— Ratted Out
Stop working for those bloodthirsty Christians! Just kidding. How about a live trap that just sticks the little bugger in place without killing him? Either that or meditate on the greater good it does to stop a trash-eating varmint from spreading disease in your workplace.
Been bad? karmacleanser@gmail.com.
This article appears in Aug 9-15, 2006.
