OK, this past week has been too ripe not to share. Ripe as in rotting garbage, but that can be a sweet smell to some — think compost. At least that’s how I’m trying to spin the cloud of bad luck that has hung over me ever since I began my return trip from Newark International Airport last Monday. It truly has been a bad run of epic proportions, but I have found myself laughing quite a bit. As much as it may stink, it hasn’t hurt, for which I am grateful. And so, it is my intention that, by recounting this string of stories once more, I will let go of them and the bad luck they rode in on. A symbolic purge, if you will, which is funny in itself given story #4 below.
So, without further adieu, here it goes, LSG’s Most Amazing String of Bad Luck EVER:
#1 – Missed Flight
Yes, I was up too late partying after my dear friends’ wedding. No, I didn’t set my phone alarm just in case. Needless to say, after quite a tiring spin through the NE over 10 days, I fell asleep waiting for my return flight to Oakland. A full 12 hours later than planned — 11 PM instead of 11 AM — I arrive in Oakland only to realize that I was the victim of the most unfortunate….
#2 – Lost Wallet
Lost, stolen, who knows? All I do know is that when I got to AirBART and I reached for some singles to pay the fare, my wallet was not in my pocket. D’oh! Turns out someone tried to use my ATM card to purchase $3.50 worth of soda pop at a convenience store somewhere in Oakland later that night. Brilliant. After this one-two punch I took the next day off to deal with cards, licenses, laundry, food, etc. After that day of errands and an evening meeting, I came home to find, or rather, not find, my…
#3 Stolen Bike
Yep, right off my porch. Granted it wasn’t locked because I was riding my new bike and needed to use the only u-lock I own. My only consolation is that the bike didn’t have pedals. Hopefully the thief got really tired walking the bike to his lair. And now I have an excuse to build another sweet new bike! The week continued without incident from that point, propelled by my foolish thinking that bad things come in threes. That is, until Friday after work when I experienced a…
#4 Bout of Sudden, Violent Illness
I’m just going to blame it on the sushi I had for lunch, even if it was sushi from the same joint I visit at least once a month with coworkers. Here’s how it went down: I left work just a bit early to make a yoga class. Once I got home, I changed and ate a banana. Crazy, I know. Within the first twenty minutes of class I start sweating profusely and wondering what was going on, feeling a little bit of banana indigestion. 30 minutes in I had to leave the room and sit in the bathroom, but only long enough to realize something was not right and that I was actually quite nauseous. I packed up my mat, threw on my clothes and pedaled blindly home, all the while repeating the mantra “I can make it…almost there…I can make it…” Well, I didn’t make it. About two blocks from my house I puked while riding my bike. Vomit all over the handlebars and front tire of the bike I had just built with so much loving care! I dragged my ass back home, shed some more internal matter through various orifices and promptly passed out for 12 hours. Oddly, I woke up laughing about the irony of puking on my precious bike over which I had been blatantly obsessing. Har-Har. It really was funny at the time. Whatever the cure, I felt much better on Saturday, like a new man, so much so that I decided to ride my bike into the city to catch the tail end of one of the endless parades that clog the streets of downtown San Francisco. This was a good idea in theory until I had my….
#5 Broken Seat Swallowed by A Street Cleaner
So get this. I’m following the path of the parade, smelling the stench of refuse and watching the street cleaning machines try to bring some order back to Market Street. At one point I decide to bust around one of the cleaners since I was dangerously close to getting sprayed by water and who knows what else. I navigated the passage just fine, but just when I pulled in front of the cleaner, my seat breaks off and I struggle to maintain control of my bike — no easy task on a fixed gear. When I do finally pull over, the only evidence of my seat I can find is one of the pieces of the seat post — the seat was plumb swallowed by the street cleaner!
And that was that. The end of my ride in the city and, I insist, the end of this strange window of bum luck. For all the hassle and headache and general grief that these five incidents have brought about, I’ve felt pretty calm, cool and collected. Sure I wasn’t happy that my wallet disappeared, but I didn’t stomp around cursing. I have tried to minimize the importance of these events — downplaying them when I find it necessary to relay the story to someone, editing them out of tales for others. It would seem that this tactic has not worked. And so, I give you these vignettes as one final attempt to free myself from the fates. It’s all up to me, and I say I’m done. Better luck begins here and now with my intention to make it so.
Filed under: Et Cetera
