Luck

Written on the plane ride from Phoenix to home today

Sometimes, the great dice of the world are cast in your favor. And sometimes, they’re just not. While we all hope these lucky dice will be there when we need them, so often they just aren’t. One might think they should be readily available on our vacation, but, of course, they weren’t. The great dice of the world have left my family frustrated and my mother telling our tale of woe to anyone who will listen (even though so many don’t).

Here it is. Our plane was delayed an hour and fifteen minutes. This wouldn’t have been so bad if we didn’t have a connecting flight to where we really wanted to go. We almost made it but then the plane before us hit a bird. Yes a freaking bird. So we just missed it. Then, of course, when we tried to get some sort of help, we had to run around the airport until we got some help after the fifth person or so. But, hey, at least we got a room to stay at overnight and a flight the next day (even though our luggage was in limbo, our clothes with it. Yay to the same underwear for two days!). Oh and I got molested patted down by a TSA officer because I moved (all of this was detailed here).

Okay, okay so the road to Utah wasn't the greatest maybe. We all thought it would end there, though. Utah was good so it was cool. Ending up at Arizona twenty minutes early would be a good sign, right? Nope. While we got there early, Hilton took forever to find us a room and the bathing suits were still in luggage. So we went to lunch in one of their dumpy hotel joints and it took an hour because there was a lack of service (oh and in that hour, I got an alcoholic

piña colada. While most teens would probably have jumped at the opportunity, it tasted too terrible for me to consume fully and I just took my medication).

The rest of the vacation wasn't that bad. It wasn't the greatest vacation I ever had but it wasn't the worst. The Bad Luck Dice chucked my mom upside the head and hid her prescription glasses (which we still haven't found) but the rest of us were fine. We also had a $360 meal at this super-expensive steakhouse (I'm not sure that's bad luck, considering it totally revolutionized my mouth. Maybe for my parents, though).

But then the tornado had to hit Dallas. This wouldn't have been a problem if we didn't have a connecting flight there. That meant my mom had to hassle for a ride home, which had to go in early (I woke up at five in the morning) to get paper tickets. And now the Bad Luck Dice has hit me and left me with a dead computer (that I charged last night) on this flight. So, on top of everything, the first draft of this blog is on paper.

This all has got me thinking about how arbitrary luck really is. While the Bad Luck Dice hit us pretty bad, it could have been worse. At least this is temporary. My parents might have worked hard for where they were, but my sister and I sure didn't. We could have been born inner-city kids. Or sick kids.

Luck really doesn't care. It's just luck. It hits without warning and it does so without a care or thought. All it takes is to be at a certain place at a certain time. To have one tiny thing happen to create a cause-and-effect chain of events impossible to stop. That's a huge thing to take in and quite a scary one. I'm a control freak but luck just comes in and tells me I can't control everything.

Some people are so scared of this idea that they come up with explanations to make this idea go away. Karma, a god who plans everything ahead of time. I can't do this and whenever I mention either, I do so as a figure of speech. I believe that the only way to come to peace with the ways of the world is to look a it head-on and to find truth in it any way you can. When I lied to myself, I was only shortcoming myself. Doing this, of course, only tends to bite you in the ass later.

Luck is that wind that blows you off-course to various places. It stares at you, ready to drag you to all sorts of places.

I only can hope it blows me home and, at least, drags me to things I can live with. I hope it does so to everyone else who reads this, too.