Don’t increase random badness by bad choices; the random stuff is plenty. I’ll get to that at the end.
That’s a car battery. Simple as that. It could’ve been anything…..alarm clock, broken water heater, drain clogged, or something ‘serious’ like appendix rupture or more serious like your life partner announcing she’s [he’s] leaving.
When life gets into a pattern everything just goes a predetermined way because it always has for the previous month, year, or decade. Then the horrible thing happens. I go outside, turn the key, and….nothing. Being somewhat of a mechanic I know what happened: batteries die after a number of years suddenly within a few hours and they can’t be charged, the car can’t even run with a battery jump from somewhere because the alternator can’t supply enough juice in idle mode.
So, to avoid the horror of towing the car I have to replace the battery right then and there if I want to get to work. 1) Pull out the old battery, breaking the holder because the bolts are frozen, 2) In the process of pulling out the battery get HClCO4 or some damn thing on my new jeans which will eat a hole within a few minutes, 3) Borrow wife’s car to take the old battery to a car repair shop, 4) Whoops, call work and tell them I’m going to be late, 5) Crap, notice digital readout on wife’s car says only 5 miles worth of gas left, drive 4.8 miles to gas station with old battery, 6) Panic starting to set in (I have to get to work), 7) Finally get new battery from ChargeYourAssALotOfMoneyForNewBattery store. 8) Dawning on me that I’ve been Rickrolled by Lady Luck. 9) Calmed down, replaced battery, got to work. What was all the fuss about?
OK, the fuss was “What Was Supposed to Happen Today Didn’t Happen, and I Had a Hissy Fit About It”. Really, all in all, it was a normal day. Stuff happens, luck (pos or neg) is looking around for some place to land, random events occur, you’ll probably get through it just fine.
Then later that same day, listening to an interview with “They Might Be Giants”, John Flansburgh, he said they had a saying back in the day: ‘If it’s happening, it’s happening.’ Somehow it clicked for me. A few ways to take that, but for me it was to just accept the world right now, whatever it may be; because it can’t be any other way right now.
Also, with weird stuff looking around for someplace to settle down, don’t push your luck. There is enough random RickRolling to go around, and you will get plenty of it, just living a decent life. So don’t increase your odds of the bad side of luck coming around by making bad decisions. If you suspect ….hmmmm….I don’t feel right about doing this but…. Then don’t do it (easy for me to say), but those moments when your life breaks are plenty; don’t add to it by RickRolling yourself.
Leave a Reply