Not instant karma exactly, but a fair version of it. I was in a band back in my home state of Maine a decade or so ago, and we were playing a venue in a small town called Greenville, which is famous for its lakes (and loving tourists), nocturnal fog, and substantial moose population. In fact, a certain stretch of one-lane road is so well-known for car accidents caused by moose wandering out of the woods that there are multiple signs and lights warning motorists to use extreme caution.

Well, it was late on a Friday afternoon; as I hit the aforementioned stretch of road, it began to rain. Visibility was pretty terrible. I slowed my car and drove as carefully as possible, having hit several deer in the past and not wanting to add a far more dangerous moose dust-up to my roster of driving calamities.

But it seems I must have been driving a little too slowly for the car behind me because the driver started honking his horn and flashing his lights, indicating that I was keeping him from wherever it was he felt he needed to be at that moment.

Finally, after about five minutes of this, I pulled over to the side of the road and let him pass. I caught a glimpse of his youthful profile and that of an older woman in the passenger seat. “Have at it, buddy,” I muttered under my breath as I pulled back onto the road and continued toward town.

When I got to the hall where we were playing that night, my band was already set up, waiting for me, and not the least bit concerned that we would be starting a few minutes late. They knew the dangers of that particular stretch of road and were glad that I had arrived in one piece.

As we took the stage and began to play, I was surprised to see what I thought was the face of the impatient young driver among the crowd filling the seats in front of me. What a coincidence, I thought. Later, during a break, one of my band mates pointed out the young man and his passenger, who turned out to be the young man’s mother, to me. The pair were my band mate’s sister and nephew. And then he told me something else—that the nephew had been worried that he would miss the show because he had been stuck behind some idiot who been driving so freakishly slow for the last ten miles into town.

I don’t know if my band mate ever told the kid that I was that so-called idiot, but I took great pleasure in the idea of him passing me so impatiently because he was in such a hurry to see…well….me!