$5 trouble
softsofa
exercise. So I'm walking a little past 11 PM yesterday when I find $5
lying on the sidewalk. Naturally, I immediately look around to see if
it's autumn for a $5 tree, but no luck... or so "I" thought until I
remembered my lifetime curse: "may you have an interesting life".
One of the symptoms of this curse is that most good luck is at least
matched by an equal amount of bad luck. But I'm only 10 minutes from
my house, ands it's only $5 worth of bad luck, so what could happen? I
find out in 3 blocks.
As I'm crossing the street, a pickup pulls up and blocks me off. I
walk around it and keep heading on. 2 drunks jump out and one of them
starts yelling, "Don't walk away from me!" I keep going. He
following, yelling something about the Army. I turn around but keep
walking away backwards. He wants me to come back. I yell back that
yes, "I" want to talk to guys on a dark street. He's either in the
Army, or he hates the army or something about the army and he wants me
to pick a position about the army and if it's wrong, it's fight club.
Now, my neighborhood is real quiet. If not for the curse, these guys
would be fighting miles away. So I yell back (while continuing to
move away), "<mutter mutter ARMY mutter 100% ARMY!>"
This seems to be what they wanted to hear for the loud one cheers and
they drive away. That seemed kind of a close call for only $5, but
no...
I get to within few blocks from my house when I see that someone has
posted a 'lost pet' sign on a pole. There's a street light on the
opposite side of the pole, so the sign is in shadow and I have to get
close to read it. As I'm reading, I fail to notice that the light is
getting much brighter; I just move closer. Now my face is inches away
but the glaring light from the other side of the pole makes it
impossible to see.
"Wait a second," 'I' think, "Glaring light?" I look around the pole.
On the other side of the pole, a cop-car has snuck up. He's got his
brights directly on me and the pole. I immediately see that from his
perspective, there's a guy trying to hide behind a pole. In my right
hand are the pair of gloves I removed when the drunks confronted "I".
So I'm a guy hiding behind a pole with something in my right hand.
I slowly move from behind the pole, holding the gloves away from my
body. This satisfies the cop and he drives away as I walk away. But
who knows what would have happened that night if "I" had found $100...
(Years ago, "I" was offered something worth a gazillion dollars. That
offer would have made me the happiest person in the world... for the 5
seconds remaining in my life before I was killed. So I refused it.
Looking back, if I could have convinced iself that I would have lasted
a full minute, things would have been different...)
[]softsofa[]
DrFeelgoodWA
"softsofa" <soft...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:q0tro317jc7abclvp...@4ax.com...
That brings back memories of the 6th. grade at Navy Base school in
Lakewood. The grounds had a chain link fence complete with barbed wire
on top and an abandoned guard shack at the entrance. They were
painting the building the offices were in when school started that
year. About 2 weeks into the year they got into painting the trim
boards and rain gutters.
Getting off the bus just outside the guard shack one morning some jerk
on a bike deliberately ran right into Me from behind. Me knocked the
#$*!| off his bike and gave him a good pounding that made him talk in
a very high voice. Me and several friends crossed in front of the
office building where the painters had ladders up to the roof line so
they could paint the trim. Me being a bit of a non believer walked
under the ladder whilst friends, still talking about the pounding I
had given "bike boy with a high voice" gave the ladder a wide berth.
Directly under the ladder I picked up a brand new 10 dollar bill and
gave a hoot hoot. Friends stopped talking about "bike boy with a high
voice" and started paying attention to the sound of me hoot hooting.
One of them said: walking under ladders is bad luck, are you hurt? I
said no, but he was correct as Me had just found a ten dollar bill.
Almost in unison the group said what good luck that was. So Me
explained it was indeed bad luck as Me had been looking for a twenty.
softsofa
You think "I" would have known better than to pick it up...
[]softsofa[]
US
reflective vest, of course) instead of walk...
May you have a mildly interesting life (but only in a good way).
Micro-T
"softsofa" <soft...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:q0tro317jc7abclvp...@4ax.com...