Hermann Krauße:
Alltag im Dorf [Everyday life in the village]
(c. 1930)

"…bringing absolutely no significant alternative meaning to the pre-existing plotline. "

A Comeuppance doesn’t require a great calamity to appear. Many, probably most, arrive with little fanfare, more stealthily than those proverbial little cat’s feet, unanticipated and apparently undeserved. These are the EverydayComeuppances, the micro-penances that visit everyone occasionally, eventually. They connote no necessary guilty anything: pleasure, indulgence, or otherwise. They arrive unbidden and probably undeserved, though they rightfully spark a spate of questioning inside their victims, who must, at least for decency’s sake, ask themselves a few troubling questions to at least attempt to confirm that this wasn’t karma visiting to balance some invisible scales, to make certain this Comeuppance wasn’t the direct result of some sin of either omission or commission. Shit does, indeed, sometimes just happen, and the presence of a victim does not now and never has necessarily pointed to any actual crime having been committed. The punishment’s no different in either case, but the guilt sure is.

My latest EverydayComeuppance visited me at approximately 1:34 this morning. (It irks me that testimony often features precisions passed off as approximations. It was not approximately 1:34 AM, but precisely that time. Comeuppances hold the power to burn preciselies deeply into their recipient’s mind.) I woke with a throat flooded with a vinegary substance, immediately reminiscent of that iffy coleslaw I’d ordered as a side at supper a few hours before. The Muse and I were on the road, and I’d spent a glorious day driving solo down the Columbia River Gorge, sagebrush in brilliant yellow October bloom, and the river a mirror surface. I’d stopped at a new (to me) burger joint in The Dalles for a late lunch, not really hungry after a perfect, if late, breakfast of bean soup gruel, a personal favorite. I’d slightly overeaten with that perfect burger, served with relish as the best vintage ones always are. I’d begged off dinner with my son and grandkids before heading to The Muse’s hotel as the sun set. (She had driven over earlier with her fellow Port Commissioners to attend a Society For The Prevention of Port Commissioners Conference. I’d happily trailed behind in the Schooner.)

By the time I’d settled into the hotel room, I was late for supper. The Muse was already done in and had consumed her share at an earlier cocktail reception with ample canapes. I slipped across the street to a BBQ place I’d visited on earlier trips. The sliced brisket plate was sold out, so I settled for a brisket sandwich, which I’d insisted upon ordering with one more than the customary single side. I’d selected the slaw and the potato salad, each its own kind of disappointment. As travelers do, though, I crammed that supper down, knowing the Hilton room didn’t have a garage refrigerator where I could burgle leftover bean-soup gruel if I found myself starving before breakfast. Travelers learn to gorge, and perhaps that was my undoing. The two disappointing IPAs I’d also consumed might have encouraged a biological bloom to begin in my lower regions. Whatever had encouraged that vinegary flood, I felt terrified. I fully expected Noah and his ark to follow that vinegary flood up.

Few Comeuppances ever come very close to matching the ones that visit a traveler on the road. As a veteran of more nights on the road than I’ll ever even consider wanting to remember, those hotel rooms, empty save one hollowed stranger, tend to be the loneliest places ever devised, even given that they usually offer free cable. I rarely even turn on the television when visiting a hotel. I take it as a matter of pride that I can entertain myself better than the Weather Channel ever could. I rushed to the bathroom, lit by a soft white nightlight glow, and frantically swished cold water into my gasping mouth, swallowing handfuls. As usual, when The Muse and I share a conference hotel room, this one came with only one drinking glass, and it was somewhere in the darkened room. I resorted to frantic hands. I reasoned that my baking soda toothpaste might provide some respite, so I foamed up a quick mouthful and swallowed it, repeatedly and desperately, because I was still in the middle of this particular Comeuppance. In that instant, I didn’t know whether I would choke and smother on this stomach-acid salad dressing or whether it would ever abate.

This experience felt appropriately terrifying. I recognized that I was likely suffering from some self-inflicted accident, the cause of which would probably remain forever unknowable. After a mere eternity gulping water and gasping in a desperate fish’s response, I fled back to the room, where I sat up in the only chair, afraid to lie down again, lest the contents of my guts sneak back up and further scorch my throat. I spent the rest of the night sitting up, recounting my many sins and meditating on the vicissitudes of mortal existence, feeling properly chastised. Perhaps the tattooed line cook had committed the original sin, or maybe I had, when I refused supper with my son and grandkids. Perhaps that late burger in The Dalles had inflicted the mortal blow. Who knows? All I know for certain this morning seems to be that this experience probably wasn’t a warning or a well-deserved punishment, but just an EverydayComeuppance, likely to occur at any odd moment, or even, occasionally, on even ones. They won’t come repeatedly without finally meaning something. Maybe this one was evidence of an undiagnosed sleep apnea. Who knows? More importantly, who cares? Who should care? Nobody could really know, and so nobody should really care. EverydayComeuppance was never a sentence haphazardly passed on a hapless defendant by a corrupt kangaroo court’s judge. There was much noise about nothing in particular, atmosphere, perhaps color, bringing absolutely no significant alternative meaning to the pre-existing plotline.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Comeuppance, #PureSchmaltz