just my luck

Tuesday, sep. 10, 2002   |   0 comments

I’m not so, so superstitious. I mean I am, but I’m realistic about it. I always hold my breath through the rainbow tunnels so I get to make a wish, but I settle for reasonable, attainable, provable requests. “I hope these shoes don’t give me a blister today” or “please let this trust exercise party not suck.” Or just, “chicken pot pie!”

The problem with making big wishes (“Don’t let me die alone!”) is that you have to wait too long to see if they come true. Or worse, you find out within the hour (yes, yes you do die alone, pierced by shrapnel from an exploding can of refried beans). And then there’s the whole “careful what you wish for” axiom, taught to us again and again by movies like Bedazzled or that one episode of “The X Files”: you may think you’re engineering the perfect, most airtight wish, but there’s always a loophole. “I hope I meet a cute boy who’s smart, funny, straight, and likes me back” will get you exactly that, only since you forgot to say “and isn’t really, really, really into magic,” you’re back where you started, only down a wish.

I also have certain, small ideas about luck, but they’re not necessarily linked to bunny feet or Irishmen. My luck comes from odd, very specific signifiers that on their own don’t mean much, but cumulatively can predict how my day is going to unfurl.

If the elevator is waiting for me when I leave my apartment, which is way up on the sixth floor, that’s a good sign. If the short-but-fluffy-haired minidogs are warming in the window of the dry cleaners on my block, that’s also fine news. (And if they’re out running around in tight, little circles on the sidewalk out front, that’s exceedingly fine news.) If the BART train is pulling up just as I arrive on the platform — the displaced air gusting and tugging at my clothes, charging everything with the feeling of exciting possibility and other hippy things — that’s another plus point. And if the car that stops in front of me is one of the clean, new ones with the fresh baby-blue interior, it’s going to be a bright, bright, sunshiny day (metaphorically, and potentially even literally).

But if one of the old, stinky, shitty (metaphorically, and potentially even literally) brown cars stops in front of me, I’m in trouble.

Like last week. I had to call the elevator, the doggy window was woefully dogless, and I got a brown car. And just guess what was waiting for me when I got to work? Not chicken pot pie. No. Elevator lubricant!

Apparently the elevator elves spilled a whole load of it on top of the elevator that cruises up and down the shaft behind the wall that sits inches away from my desk. (Oh, shaft. Remember how in high school I did that 270 into a stop sign and bent my rear axle shaft? And then I had to call all these auto salvage yards, looking for a replacement rear axle shaft? Without laughing or hanging up? Shaft!)

The elevator lubricant smelled really, really toxic. And it was! It gave me chafe-y throat and an amazing, exploding headache behind one eye, and I had to go home early. Then, on my way home, I decided to try and find some cute, headache-fighting shoes, but all the places I looked had only ugly shoes!

See? It was a very, very brown BART day.

PS: Hey, how come no one told me about perineum stretching? According to my very pregnant friend, Amy, all it takes is regular diligence, a spot of vegetable oil, and a whole lot of gumption … just like any other fine thing in life.

PPS: You know that part of Thriller, where Michael Jackson is beginning to turn into a werewolf and he screams at the girl in the Guess! jeans outfit to “GO AWAY!!!” in a deep, gates-of-hell-are-opening-type voice? Would it be weird if I yelled that in the very same way at the people who jiggle the bathroom door lock while I’m sitting in there (you know, stretching my perineum or whatever)? Oh, OK. Thanks.