Ever feel like you’ve been just a little bit too lucky? It’s creepier than experiencing déjà vu and makes me feel like the grim reaper is waiting around the corner waiting to tell me that I’ve had my share of fun. Or sometimes, it’s feels as if I’m the guy in the red shirt in a landing party on “Star Trek” and although we’ve just found this planet paradise, I’m the one who is going to be killed by an etherial alien in the first seven minutes of the show.
Maybe it’s just my outlook on life that is off. Randy is a much more optimistic person than I am which is good as we balance each other out. Still, sometimes it’s as if he has taken a shot of a luck virus (like Lister in the “Quarantine” episode of “Red Dwarf”) and thing just natrually go his way. When this “luck” kicks in, I don’t know if I should be in awe or really nervous. Good things happen just happen for him all the time and I don’t know if I should find this amusing or really frustrating.
For instance, we left our humble abode this morning on a mission to find a wedge (a golf club to us non-athletic types), an old tire that didn’t have pieces of metal sticking out of it, and a large piece of low-pile carpet or astroturf. (We need these items for a carnival game at our church tomorrow night.) Now, we live in a small town, about 5,000 people, so I wasn’t sure if we’d have much success, but Randy thought we’d check out a few garage sales. Well, within two blocks of us we spotted our first garage sale sign but it didn’t look too promising to me as it seemed to be mostly ugly knick-knacks and clothing. As you can probably guess, I was absolutely wrong. There was a golf bag sitting there and surpringingly enough (or not a surprise at all if you’re with Randy) there was an extra wedge in the bag with the set. The man sold the wedge to us for $2.
Next it was a search for a piece of carpet. I only know of one flooring dealer in town so I directed Randy there. Randy asked about getting a large scrap, roughly the size of an area rug. The man there said that they usually didn’t keep much of that around but he’d take a look. Well, of course, he just happened to have the perfect size in the short pile and gave it to us for free.
Next door to the carpet place is a repair shop where we have occasionally taken our Saturn to get fixed. What did Randy do? He walked right in and asked if they have a spare tire he could have. One of the guys took us to a locked area where they have stacks of tires and we got two tires (we were hoping to find one but getting two was a bonus!) about the same size for free and the man cleaned them up for us. So, within twenty minutes instead of the whole day like I thought it would take, we had more than everything we needed.
Perhaps this doesn’t sound particularly odd to you. Truly, it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Randy just being able to whip things up. When we lived in Tennessee, we needed a riding lawnmower for our new house and one of our friends just happened to mention to Randy that he had one barely used sitting in his garage that he wanted to get rid of for free. I wanted a Mini Cooper and Randy just happened to take his Saturn to the Saturn dealership to ask them a question and what do they have in their lot? A Mini Cooper S in dark green (Randy’s favorite color) with only 6,000 miles on it.
I’ve heard that you make your own luck and I do think there’s some truth in that. Randy is very resourceful and doesn’t mind asking people for help. He has a way of thinking outside the box and finding unusual solutions to problems.
Randy would probably say that I really am lucky sometimes as I win drawings all the time (e.g., guitars, gift certificates, giant stuffed animals, CDs, etc.). I just enter lots and lots of drawings so I figure the odds are on my side, but I never took statistics so my logic may be wrong there.
Sometimes good things just happen. Perhaps this is all over-simplifying the process of luck or, worse yet, looking a gift horse in the mouth. I guess I’ll just count my blessings or, if you prefer, count myself lucky and go on from here.