Good Deed Rebound
I believe in neither good nor bad karma. The universe appears neutral or random to me the way things work out for whom. It can be satisfying, however, to lean into my role at work as grumpy middle-aged software administrator and remind the young bucks “no good deed goes unpunished” when a well-intentioned minor task goes sideways.
The adage often applies to traffic in Frisco, Texas, where the worst drivers in any developed nation struggle to navigate a simple grid of wide paved roads. This is not a knock on the heavy concentration of South and East Asians, although I would say we are responsible for the most stunning transgressions.
Offenders are equal opportunity. I was making a right turn on green and a white guy with left turn yield honked aggressively when I correctly didn’t yield. I turned past him shaking my head and trying to lock eyes in an effort to telepathically communicate you can be nice and wrong, or mean and right, but careful when mixing the two lest you end up in the one quadrant categorically unacceptable. I don’t think he got the message.
Anyway, I also say no good deed goes unpunished whenever I extend myself with social interaction in an effort to be a connected human, only to beget more social interaction. Mostly this comes up on the parenting circuit, where the operative question is whether you need to be friends with nice people just because your kids are friends, and what if the kids are only classmates or former classmates, and you don’t even have time for your real, pre-children friends.
My wife and I generally sack up and turn up with our performative social butterfly alter egos, complaining in private before and after. Maybe it’s just me complaining. I really did not want to go to a Thanksgiving pot luck at my 3-year-old’s school in the middle of a Friday afternoon, but I did want to be a good dad and support him.
The end result this time was not punishment, but disproportionately high reward. Is this what they mean by it’s better to give than receive, an outsized ROI? One of the baller parents couldn’t use their Mavericks season tickets the following night and gave them to us.
Section 105, Row A are not numbers and letters that go together in my income bracket. I could see Klay Thompson’s beautiful face and physique so clearly. I felt like I could touch him. I wanted to touch him. I loved him on Golden State, always a threat to hang 35 in 35 minutes while guarding the opponent’s best player. I love him now, age 35, post-ACL and Achilles, grinding off the bench for a 5-14 team that was supposed to give him open looks off Luka and Kyrie double teams.
Klay scored 22, missed the game-tying 3, and got in three shouting matches with Grizzlies players, the NBA equivalent of throwing punches. I love him so much. He is so fine, this perfect swirl of Black and white that shows what racial harmony can produce. Back in his heyday with the Warriors, I heard he would roll up to the club and take his pick of groupies lined up. My wife likes to joke how I would be waving my hand frantically, “Me me pick me Klay!”
Barely half Klay’s age, No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg has been hyped like no American since LeBron. If he lives up to it, my kids can say they were there his rookie season, completely ignoring him running out of the tunnel next to them.
Those noise-canceling headphones were a buzzer-beating Amazon Prime assist. My wife saved the experience with what I initially thought was a frivolous purchase. Our 6-year-old would not have made it to the first timeout with all the blaring sound effects in the arena. He already had the headphones on walking through the metal detector, which set it off. The security staff handed them back afterwards with gentle intention, giving my wife Warren vibes from “There’s Something About Mary.”
Yeah he might be autistic. Super sensitive to sounds, has to watch the progress bar when listening to songs in the car, obsessed with counting, trouble connecting abstract concepts and grasping emotion and social norms.
The thing is, all those things apply to me except the progress bar and that’s probably because I grew up with radios and CD players that didn’t have them. I never got a diagnosis or noise-canceling headphones. I know there is a tendency for older generations to lionize their childhood and how tough they had it, as if millennials were the ones who stormed Normandy.
Truly though, these kids had no idea how good they had it with their courtside seats and headphones. There was a little bit of charm to it. Warren of course was fixated on the numbers changing on the scoreboard rather than 7-foot-3 giants (Zach Edey) doing amazing things directly in front of him. Every time the Mavs scored, I got to relive it a second later by toggling my line of vision to his face, which lit up into broad smiles accompanied by the cutest fist pumps and index finger points.
His little brother took a liking to the “Go Mavs Go” chant, which was cute, but the cutest was after the game in the car when he was blabbering about a lion and Black Panther. I thought he meant one of his favorite superheroes until he referenced the winning score, and I realized he was interpreting the logo on the scoreboard and didn’t know what an effing Grizzly was.
It capped a memorable night and kickoff to the holiday season. Happy Thanksgiving to all, may you be the beneficiary of good deeds in good company.
