You know what I'm talking about, right?

My mom gave me a coupon for a free Jamba Juice. It was due to expire today, so I ran over at lunch to grab me a delicious free smoothie. While waiting in line, I felt a tap on my arm and turned to find a man standing next to me, handing me a card. I immediately accessed that this was one of those deaf sign language give me money schemes and handed the card back. (In a polite way, I wasn't a complete bitch or anything.) He handed out his cards to a couple more people, who also handed them back, and then he left. A worker came up behind the girl at the register and asked what the guy was handing out. She said he was deaf and asking for donations.

I don't know why I felt the need to speak up, but I guess the jaded New Yorker in me just scoffed a little too loudly to be ignored, so I said, "Oh, I doubt he's deaf." And the worker and the register girl stared at me like I said I had just killed a raccoon outside by stepping on its head. "You don't think he's really deaf?" the register girl asked in an awed voice. I realized immediately I should have kept my mouth shut, because what do I know if that guy was deaf. I backtracked by saying as much, but then couldn't help myself by adding that that it was a well-known tactic for panhandling, though. Again the raccoon-killing looks. "Well, I see him here all the time. I woulda given him a dollar," the register girl said finally. I felt both indignant that I knew the cards are a ploy (regardless of whether the card bearer can hear or not), and sorry I'd said anything badmouthing the apparent neighborhood deaf dude.

I got my smoothie and mulled on it on the way back to the office. I actually spent a lot of time with the deaf community in high school and know a fair amount of sign language. I was sorta wishing I'd been quick enough to pull some out. Of course, it's ridiculously rusty now and the ensuing conversation would have been all, "Where's the bathroom?" "I like cats" and some finger spelling.

Then I noticed the straw in my smoothie was cracked somewhere, because I was sucking a lot of air. No matter, I would fix it back at the office. The big Best Of issue is out today and on my way into my building, I grabbed a stack of the papers, which weigh like 10 pounds each. As I was pulling them out of the stand, I lost my grip on the smoothie and it started to go flying. I made a lunging grasp at it and caught it...with my thumb punching through the styrofoam cup and effectively splicing the cup in half in my hand. I dropped the papers, which the wind immediately picked up and tossed everywhere. The stand was covered in purple berries and vita-boost and there was no trash can to be seen. I lurched inside and made my way to the kitchen and a spare cup, saving most of the drink and coating myself and the sink in smoothie. After cleaning up the sidewalk as much as I could and gathering up the papers that were still around, I feebly made my way back to my desk.

I'm sure there's a very concise way of saying "Karma's a bitch" in sign language, but I don't know what it is.