The Snow Shovel (I'm sure you can figure out some way this relates to the trigger)

By the time I got to the bus stop my feet were covered. Heels are good for digging into slippery ice, but they don’t do much for five inches of snow. The man waiting there had a snow shovel in his hand.
“Hello!” he said.
“Hi.” I flexed all my muscles and curled my toes in, trying to generate heat. The bus was supposed to be there in minutes. The thing about the bus is, it comes when it wants to, while you wait, powerless.
A few moments later, the shovel man came up with, “Where you headed to?”
“Home.” He nodded.
“Me, too. This’ll keep on and I go back for awhile before I come back out.” I really didn’t know what he was talking about but maybe he meant that he had to wait for the snow to stop falling before he could shovel it all up. I’m not sure why he would take the bus to shovel snow. Maybe the rich people on Summit Avenue paid him to shovel their walk. He looked about fifty, so I guess he was a hobo-chores-around-the-house shoveler rather than the twelve-year-old boy type.
“Say, can I ask you a favor? Can I use your phone to call my friend?” My hand closed around the new phone in my coat pocket. The last one had been stolen.
“I don’t know. Are you going to run away with it?” I asked him. But I felt bad saying that, so I was already pulling my phone out of my pocket.
“Now, why would you think that?” he said, smiling. His top front row of teeth looked like their ends had been shaved off in a line.
“I don’t know you,” I apologized.
“Well, can’t you just look at me and tell? You’re a smart girl. Can’t you look in a person’s eyes and see their soul?”
“No.”
“C’mon. Look in my eyes.” I looked and saw that they were yellow where they were supposed to be white.
“Sorry, I’m not a very trusting person.”
“Oh,” he said. “You had a bad experience?”
“Yeah.” I was relieved. He seemed to understand.
“That’s why, then,” he said kindly.
“Are you taking the bus?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Then you can use my phone when we get on the bus.” Which should have already happened by now.
“You know, I’m just gonna bide my time, I live up on University there. I’ll just wait til I get home.”
“Ok.” I decided I was allowed to put my phone back in my pocket.
“You gotta learn,” he said, “Every person’s not the same. You gotta trust and believe and just know that whatever happens, its all for a reason. Karma. Even the trees. You see those two trees?” I nodded. “Well, they both had different experiences that affected how they grow and even the trees have karma. Because of their experiences, each one is different. Everything that happens is a result of what you done.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’d have to be a pretty evil person to deserve everything that’s happened to me.”
“Well, look what you’ve done. You won’t give a stranger a zero balance.” I thought he would understand. I thought he would say its ok. I was just a baby.
“What about child abuse?” I asked. “Do you think little kids did something to deserve abuse?”
“Well, they may not have done anything in this life, but in a past life.”
I thought I had him. I thought he would agree that child abuse is wrong.
“I don’t think child abuse is the kid’s fault.” I said.
“Well, I don’t expect you to understand,” the fifty-year-old snow shoveler said. “It’s a very spiritual concept.” I was old enough now to know manipulation when I heard it. A year or two ago I might have lost my phone. After a few minutes of silence the bus finally came, late from all the snow. The shoveler moved a few scoops of snow just before getting on. Luckily, he was first so I had the opportunity to sit far away from him. He got off at University like he said. I wondered if he actually had a home to go to. I wondered if he’d go over the whole scenario in his head and say, “I had her. The phone was in her hands! Next time…”