Pissing in a Slow-Draining Shower: A Monologue As if Told by Sam Elliott

Karma gathers. It hangs around. It's like pissing in a slow-draining shower: it feels good at first, but you just end up standing in your own mess.

It's a lot smarter to piss outside under the stars. That puts your mess in perspective. Head cocked back, steam rising off the ground, measuring yourself with the cosmos. Your piss is soaked into the dirt, no worse for wear.

Karma doesn't care about your morals. Morals come in and out of fashion like bell-bottomed slacks. Karma cares about your soul; your core and what you know there.

I blame jazz music. Songs used to have beginnings, endings, choruses and words. They were clear. Then you take the best musicians and they start improvising. No plan to speak of; they don't know where they're going. Form gets ambiguous, goes out the door. People listen and lose their bearings.

But karma has Santa Claus eyes. It knows your dark secrets, standing over top of you while you sleep, with its big, black boot on your sternum and a bag full of retribution.

That boot can feel heavy if you've filled Karma Claus's bag full for him.

You wanna breath again? Get right with your soul. Don't ask permission or forgiveness. You can't know another's soul, so trying to do what's right for them is like hiking in high heel shoes that aren't your size.

You want that boot off your chest? Don't fill the bag. Know your soul and do right by it.

And next time, piss under the stars.