It all began with a skirt.
There I was, harmlessly trundling along Stonegate, when my eye was caught by a nice red sign in the window of the Moon Shop. “SALE”, it declared.
Well, I am never knowingly under-saled, so I had no option but to enter.
And there it was. The skirt of my dreams, half price.
Or there it would have been, had it been my size.
“Don’t worry,” said the very nice assistant. “We can order it for you from our other shop.”
Jolly good, quoth I. I gave her my telephone number and departed.
A couple of days later, I received a call from the Moon Shop, and duly trundled back to collect said skirt.
A different and equally nice assistant handed it over to me with a smile.
“I haven’t paid for it yet,” I said.
“I think you have,” she replied.
“I really haven’t,” I said. Obviously, there’s nothing I’d like more than the skirt of my dreams for free, but as the Moon Shop is close to the Minster, I feared the central tower might fall on me if I failed to come clean.
“I think you have,” she said. “I’ll just call the manager.”
And so the manager arrived. All I can say is that the Moon Shop would have a blanket Catastrophic Fail from the York School of Charm, as he was just as nice as his assistants.
“You’re quite right,” he said. “You haven’t paid. Thank you for being so honest. Lots of good things will happen to you now. It’s good karma.”
Well, I’ll settle for a bit of good karma and a half price skirt any day, I thought, as I went on my merry way. I wonder what good fortune will befall me this week?
I was soon to find out. Arriving home, I was greeted by a letter from the NHS.
“Penalty Charge Notice”, it announced. “Total Due: £185.20”.
Unbeknown to me, my pre-payment certificate had expired. I suppose I have only myself to blame for this – but the amount apparently included a surcharge for failing to respond to the initial invoice, which I never received. So much for good karma.
Things can only get better, I thought, as I – unusually – drove into town to collect some laundry. And indeed they didn’t, as I returned from collecting said laundry to find a penalty charge notice stuck to the windscreen.
By this point, I was starting to wish the Man in the Moon Shop had wished me bad karma instead. Then, however, I had a sudden flash of inspiration. I have three months to return some tiles to Fired Earth in Leeds. The three months is about to expire, so this will be a good moment to recoup my some money and pay off some of the pesky fines.
And so I decide to catch a Zap bus to Leeds, combining tile-depositing with meeting my sister.
“Fired Earth first stop,” I say. “These tiles weigh a ton.”
But what greets us? A notice on the door, informing us that the shop closed down in July.
“Oh well,” my sister says. “I think the tiles wanted a day out.”
They are now enjoying their nice life in a box on my worktop, the three month return period having expired.
Back in York, I return to the Moon Shop, not least to look at the painted quarry tiles on their floor.
“How was the skirt?” The manager asks.
“The skirt was fine,” I say. “But I could have done without your good karma, as it has been a week of minor disasters.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” he says. “Perhaps you should buy a Lottery ticket?”
Now that’s a good idea. After so much bad luck, I am bound to win at least £10.
Full of anticipation, I faff around on the internet trying to find out how many millions I have won. Needless to say, I have won absolutely nothing.
There’s nothing for it but to ring a friend to have a nice moan.
For no good reason, my house has a pitiful mobile signal, so I take my phone into the garden, closing the back door behind me.
Only once I have finished my tale of woe do I remember that the back door handle has stopped working, meaning that I can’t get back in.
Ah well: there’s always the front door. However, the front door is locked, and the key is on the other side. I poke at the keyhole with a twig, to unsurprisingly little avail.
I can’t believe I’m going to have to break into my own house. I examine the back of it. I could use a handy ladder and climb onto the extension roof and through the bathroom window. Then again, I’d probably end up falling off the ladder, so perhaps not. And so I do the sensible thing and ring my builder friend.
Within half an hour, he had not only arrived but had fixed the back door handle, which had needed fixing for months. So the Man in the Moon Shop was right after all.
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