Notes from Maine - 2026/10/11

I’m not a huge fan of karma. I mean the transactional element of it—like we’re supposed to put good in the world because it will lead to good coming back to us. Or, read a different way, the idea of karma suggests that if something negative happens to us it might be because we did something negative previously. It seems like a cosmic “Take a Penny, Leave a Penny” spiritual tray.

I feel like there are plenty of reasons to do good, altruistic deeds, and we shouldn’t need the extra motivation of how it will affect us. The feeling alone should be the reward. In contrast, the guilt of doing something thoughtless or unkind should be enough punishment without the added “karma is a b****” penalty hanging over it.

I need to come clean about the haircut that I got on Friday, October 2.

I “stole” that haircut.

After my vaccinations, I drove over to the haircut place and saw that the parking lot was empty. Normally, I would have checked in online before going over there. The reservation system is very loose—walk-ins are mingled with people who have already saved a place in line through the website. Even though it was a Friday afternoon, I thought that an empty parking lot might mean they had a chair available. It was almost true.

I put my phone number in the kiosk and sat down before I looked up at the board. I was the only person waiting and there were three stylists working on haircuts that looked all but done. But the board said that I had a 98-minute wait ahead of me. I almost left. I definitely should have left. One name (let’s call him Cody) said “Returning” and then there were six other names stacked up with various wait times before I got to my 98-minute spot. Sure enough, a minute or two later, Cody (I assumed) walked back in and sat down. This young person looked to be in desperate need of a haircut, but maybe that’s the look that Cody was going for.

One stylist finished up, came to the register, hit some buttons, asked questions of another stylist, and Cody’s name jumped to “On Deck.” That meant that Cody would be getting a chair soon, and I (hopefully) might squeeze into the next chair after that before Leon arrived. 

My name still said 98 minutes before it. That’s when the person at the register announced that she was going to lunch. She hit a few more buttons.

Cody never looked up. He was slouched in a chair looking down at his folded arms.

I started to wonder about Cody at that point. Was he actually there for a haircut, or was he just someone who had been walking by the store and he ducked in to have a seat for a few minutes before he would be on his way again? 

People waiting for haircuts always do the same things when they arrive. They sit on the edge of the chair, tap their foot or bounce their knee for a moment while they glance around, and then they pull out their phone and settle back into a hunched-over scrolling session. When a stylist is at the register, they sit up and pay attention to see if their name will be called. Cody didn’t do any of those things and seemed completely unperturbed that 33% of the available stylists were about to go to lunch while the board said, “Cody - On Deck.”

Then, Leon arrived. 

He went to the kiosk, typed in his phone number, and the board changed again.

Cody lost his “On Deck” spot and slipped to the very bottom of the list. He now had a 98-minute wait, according to the board. My name miraculously jumped to On Deck. Leon was right below me at 15 minutes.

Seeing Leon arrive, I almost called off the idea of waiting. I had already been there twenty minutes, and I assumed that I was in line behind all the people who hadn’t arrived yet. Once I was listed at the top of the board, I decided to wait things out. My name sat at 9 minutes for another 15. It was irritating to watch the clock change without the estimated time decreasing at all, but I really wanted to know if Cody would get his rightful spot. 

Both of the available stylists finished at the same time. My name was called.

This is when I should have pointed to Cody and declared that it was his turn. I told myself that the other stylist would surely attend to Cody before Leon—she had seen the order in which people had arrived. But no, I took a seat and Leon took a seat. Cody was skipped, got frustrated and left.

I took a haircut that wasn’t rightfully mine, and I paid the price for that haircut. The stylist, infected with six different seasonal diseases, whispered them into my ear during that haircut. I was sick for a week after. One might say, “Karma is a b****.”

I don’t like the idea of karma, though. 

Albert (dog) had dental surgery on the 30th and then suffered through a terrible week after. We tried five kinds of food, including his normal food softened, but everything upset his stomach. He had to go back to the vet on Tuesday to try to figure out why he wouldn’t eat and urgently needed to go outside every ninety minutes. That special food and those new pills didn’t help at all. Thursday, he had to return to the vet again for more bloodwork, tests, and exams. Finally they got him sorted out by Friday. That was ten days of misery when he had done nothing wrong. 

I was trying to be proactive about his dental care. They took care of his teeth and rearranged his gums for the best long-term prognosis. In the process, he was digestively tortured and lost 10% of his body weight. Poor Albert didn’t do anything to deserve such bad karma. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. It just can’t be helped. Sometimes we try to do the right thing and stumble right into misery. 

And poor Cody really needed that haircut.