I’d been living on my own for years, working hard to make ends meet, when I finally saved enough to buy a 43-inch flat-screen TV — my proudest purchase. When my dad and stepmom, Patricia, visited, she immediately fixated on it and hinted that I should help her get one, too. I refused, explaining I’d saved for over a year. Two weeks later, while I was at work, Patricia let herself in with my dad’s spare key and “accidentally” shattered the screen. She claimed she was dusting, but the extensive damage was clearly deliberate. My dad believed her story, and she spread her version to relatives, painting me as ungrateful.

For a month, I had no TV and a family swayed by Patricia’s lies. I felt angry and powerless, but I couldn’t prove what she’d done. Then, karma showed up. My dad called, frustrated, to say their washing machine had flooded the laundry room, damaging the floors, walls, and furniture. Insurance wouldn’t cover it because Patricia had left the machine running with the door open while chatting on the phone.

The repairs cost about three times what my TV had been worth, forcing Patricia to drain her personal savings — the same money she’d wanted to use to get a TV like mine. I wasn’t happy that Dad was stressed, but I couldn’t help feeling that the universe had evened the score.

Sometimes, you don’t have to fight to get justice. Life has a way of returning to people exactly what they put into the world, and watching Patricia’s carelessness come back to bite her was proof enough for me that karma works in its own time.