Garage door openers are one of those things that you really never think about unless they're broken. You punch the button, it opens. Punch it again, it closes. Genius, really.
Outside of that one apartment where my garage door opener would randomly open and close at the whim of over-flying airplanes, I've really never had a beef with garage door openers before. That one was the damnedest thing; I lived on 99th and Q and a lot of military planes heading into Offutt flew over my place -- Air Force One and/or Two flew over at least a half-dozen times a month. And every time it did, my garage door would open. Some signal in its flight systems must have shared a frequency with my particular opener.
I got to where I could identify the plane when it flew over by a distinct noise it made compared to other military planes that flew overhead, and when I heard it, I knew I had to make the trek down three flights of stairs and across the parking lot to close the door.
But outside of that, I generally don't give my garage door opener much thought, particularly now that I'm in my house. When it doesn't work, you certainly notice it then. Friday night, I pulled into my driveway at 1:34 AM, punched the button and...nothing. Well, that's a slight exaggeration. The light did come on, and it came up about a quarter-of-an-inch, so it did something.
I was in no mood to mess with the thing at 1:34 in the AM, nor would I really have had any clue what to even look for in terms of fixing it had I possessed the proper mood to look at it. So I left the car in the driveway and went in through the front door.
Now, I watch "My Name Is Earl" and I know how karma works. You would think that me giving my Creighton tickets away to a guy who took his son to his first basketball game would have earned me karma points. You would think wrong.
Earlier that night, I had walked into "The Show" -- Nebraska's annual Graphic Design showcase -- and Gilby immediately was stunned to see me. "I thought for sure we wouldn't see you until 9 or so. I'm surprised you aren't at the Creighton game!"
In my defense, this was the first time since February of 2002 that I'd missed back-to-back games, so I think I deserve a little lee-way from the populace. I wanted to be both places at once, but there wasn't really a choice in the matter. I'm on the board of directors for the group putting on The Show, and even if I wasn't required to be there, I'd feel an obligation to do so.
The guy who I gave my tickets to was going to go with his nine-year old son, and he brought his son into the office on Friday to thank me. If you could have seen how excited this kid was...well, lets just say I no longer felt bad about missing the game.
Karma doesn't apply to me, apparently. Unless its coming for me later. Perhaps something unexpectedly awesome will come to pass soon. And if not, oh well. It still makes me happy to have given someone the chance to go to their first Creighton game. Broken garage door opener or no.
You bet.
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