Karma Is Our Boyfriend

Have you ever had karma work in your favor? In such a weird and glorious way that you can’t shut up about it? Just me? OK, well, here’s a story for you.

My frister (friend+sister) Megan and I had been eyeing the Eras Tour passively, but longingly. She’d been a Swiftie for years and at some point began a campaign to convert me.

As an aside, Taylor Swift is a poet in her own right. Some have compared her lyrics to Shakespeare, and as a Shakespeare aficionado myself, I’ll say that the sentiment is earned.

Yes, she’s got some boppy tunes and a lot of breakup songs. (All good.) But she’s a master of layered meanings and, well, conveying the entire pantheon of human emotions.

Just yesterday, in fact, she became the youngest artist to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Folks can criticize, but her accolades are out there running riot.

Often a song will present itself as a breakup ballad while its true meaning is delicately infused, using lyrical Easter eggs. Looking at you, my tears ricochet, a song that compares the death of a relationship to an actual death/funeral. BUT another layer deep, and it’s actually about her “stolen lullabies” and the whole Scooter Braun affair.

Some of her lines are too good to ignore. One of my favorites from All Too Well is this gem:

“They say all’s well that ends well, but I’m in a new hell every time you double-cross my mind.”

To break this down, All’s Well That Ends Well is the title of a Shakespeare play in which somebody is tricked into a love affair. Hmmm.

And WHAT DO YOU MEAN double-cross my mind? How about THAT pithy little play on words?

What language enthusiast wouldn’t swoon? And truly this barely scratches the surface.

All of this to say, I was defenseless prey. But my fandom had not reached levels enthusiastic enough to spend a small fortune on concert tickets…yet.

Enter November 6, 2024.

I’ve made no secret about my displeasure at the election results. So much that I was ready to “burn it all down” and enter my villain era.

Not villain as in mean, but villain as in “I’m a grown-ass woman and I do what I want” kind of energy. The kind of rage that will have you defending human rights on one hand and "knocking off the hats" of bigots on the other (See Moby Dick).

No more shrinking-violet, people-pleasing, play-out-somebody-else’s-script kind of woman. This earth-shattering, soul-crushing moment triggered a spontaneous transformation I’d never experienced before. One that bordered on reckless.

While I’m in this vulnerable state, Frister Megan sends me a text—also in a profound stupor and rage herself—reminding me that tickets may still be available to Taylor’s final leg of the tour in Vancouver.

She says to me, “A wise woman told me to burn it all down.” This was a reference to my most unhinged blog post. (Read it at your own risk.) We desperately needed a bright spot amidst the descending darkness.

Megan’s cunning act of throwing my own words back at me did the trick. We’d be flying to Vancouver for the penultimate show of the entire tour on December 7. And we paid a most ungodly amount for tickets.

Oh, and I’d assumed that scalping/marking up concert ticket prices was illegal.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

A little thing called supply and demand will unfortunately reward the capitalists every time. Alas, we were happy to pay “in demand” prices to StubHub Canada.

How much were they? Let’s just say it was a doubly grand affair and leave it at that.

We flew to Vancouver, got our bejeweled outfits on, and sang our hearts out with thousands of other emotionally wrecked fans.

Two wildly irresponsible women. One unforgettable night. Zero regrets.

Fast forward to March 2026. Frister Megan sends me another text.

At this point, we’d both become unwitting activists. Just a couple of middle-aged ladies out fighting fascism and speaking truth to ugly power in our own ways. Out of the old comfort zone and into the streets, she in her state and me in mine.

(Just some signs from various protests I've attended over the past year and a half.)

As long as we're just making up diagnoses.

Megan alongside our friend Rachel.

Her text tells me of an email StubHub sent her, saying that due to a “lack of transparency in ticket sales” we may be entitled to compensation because our section had an obstructed or limited view. She fills out the necessary form, and we both double-cross our fingers.

A week or so later, this was Megan’s text to me: “Karma is our boyfriend.”

We received the entire amount refunded to us. According to my math, that’s free concert tickets AND an unexpected windfall!

Karma is the final song in the setlist, and I guess we snagged some of that on the way down from our seats located up on the summit.

In the song, Taylor uses various metaphors to illustrate her relationship with karma, which has rewarded her for “keeping her side of the street clean.” At the same time, it has been a serious burden to those who have done her wrong.

The line, “Karma is my boyfriend” can either mean she has such a good relationship with karma that it might as well be her boyfriend OR that karma has bestowed her with a loyal partner/boyfriend.

Getting real here, to claim that we did something special to earn a cosmic reward is risky territory. I can’t claim that our reckless spending, subsequent activism, or any other action on our part caused our good fortune.

From the lens of simple cause and effect, Consumer Protection B.C. made the agreement with StubHub Canada, and our seats happened to be in 1 of the 5 lucky (or unlucky) sections. Not everyone in those sections received a refund, though, only those whose tickets (upon purchase) didn’t disclose that they might be limited view.

But if something makes for a good story, you know I’m going to tell it. Never mind that this whole thing could have been summed up with, “We spent a lot on concert tickets and got them refunded.” But where’s the fun in that?

And just in case, I’m always going to “keep my side of the street clean” to welcome any possible waves of good fortune from this silly and unpredictable universe of ours.