The other day I was standing on a sidewalk with 4 coworkers waiting to make a presentation to a potential client. Suddenly one of my coworkers jumped back - but it was too late. His sporting pinstripe suit and shiny black shoes were now sporting a shiny streak of birdshit.
"It's good luck." one of my other coworkers said.
Bird shit? That sounded like bull shit to me.
Like on my wedding day, when 125 of my closest friends and acquaintances were scheduled to celebrate with me on a grassy knoll overlooking the Cape Cod Canal - and it poured. And my sister-in-law to be comforted me with, "It's good luck!"
Luck? It's lucky for her I didn't want to enter the family with a left hook.
I wonder why we call these episodes of decidedly bad luck, lucky. Is it to cheer up the recipient? Is it to ward off the portent of bad luck with the promise of good?
And while we're on the subject of luck - why isn't there more good luck in the world? It's WAY more often that I come home to find out that my car NEEDS a new transmission than to find out that my car WON a new transmission.
My internet never accidentally gets faster.
I never get a check I wasn't expecting.
My mortgage company never calls to tell me that I OVERPAID.
Traffic is never better than I expect.
I never get anywhere EARLY.
And when I get shit on by a bird, I never call it lucky.
One day we were on a line to get some ice cream when I felt what I thought was a bug on my neck. I swatted at it and.... you guessed it, bird poop! I certainly didn't feel lucky. (And my wife laughing at my misfortune didn't help either.)
Posted by: TechyDad | September 28, 2011 at 09:30 AM
They say bad things come in threes...so if the bird is the third thing to shit all over you that day? Consider yourself lucky!
Posted by: Domesticated Gal | September 28, 2011 at 01:09 PM
How cool would it be if you DID discover your car actually HAD won a new tranmission?!
Posted by: Heather! | September 29, 2011 at 04:58 AM
...and then there are those a-wholes who say, "You make your own luck."
Posted by: Kim Pugliano | September 29, 2011 at 09:28 AM
It is supposed to be lucky?! It is so very NOT lucky. My life is a mess and I have the only car in the neighbourhood that gets bombed with bird shit regularly.
The birds have it in for me, man!
Posted by: melistress | September 29, 2011 at 11:32 AM
Amen.
Where's my luck?
Posted by: Marta | September 29, 2011 at 12:24 PM
There's a story in my family about the day my Grandfather, a bleacher salesman, got pooped on by a bird during a sales meeting. He made the sale, and my Grandmother insisted he wear hats in the future.
Posted by: han_nahj | September 29, 2011 at 11:03 PM
I've actually gotten the "overpaid" call from the mortgage company - apparently, there was an error in the escrow calculations, and I got a check back for a few hundred dollars. When I needed it.
It's rare, but stuff like that does happen. Sometimes.
Posted by: John | September 30, 2011 at 08:36 AM
uhm... eew?? i see no luck in excrement. nope.
Posted by: Jaimie | October 01, 2011 at 05:10 AM
It rained on my wedding day too and I was told it's lucky. I told them (whoever told me) that I think years ago some bridezilla was upset that it was raining so in an effort to calm her they came up with luck and it worked ... and so it remanis!
Posted by: Sara | October 06, 2011 at 02:16 PM