Duck for Cover
After reading this Times article about magical thinking, it’s clear that I’m an adherent, irrational as it is. Yesterday I was minding my business near the Seaport (no, I wasn’t checking out the Will Smith shoot—I was trying a restaurant) when something flicked out at me from the corner of my eye. I’m a jumpy person so it made me twitch. I looked around and realized that I’d been shit on. There was a warm (I could feel it through the Kleenex) olive green streak that looked like it’d been piped out of a tiny cake-decorating tip. I couldn’t help but think this was a bad omen that was bound to mess up something. But the only important (I use the word loosely) thing on my horizon was an online Jeopardy contestant test (I actually did an in-person test in like ’99 and was rapidly eliminated. I think now they screen people before that stage) scheduled for 8pm.
I’ve generally had middling to poor luck over the years (I’m not just being negative. My mom even told me ages ago “you were born under a rain cloud” or “you’re followed by a rain cloud.” I’m not sure which, and have never understood memoirists who write paragraphs of decades-old dialogue—can they possibly remember word for word every conversation they’ve had? They’re totally making that shit up. Anyway, I don’t think parents are supposed to say things like that, but it’s no biggie since I’ve been spared from clichés like when are you getting married, when will I get grandkids, you could stand to lose a few pounds) and yet I’ve never been literally shit on before (well, there was an accidental incident with an old boyfriend but the feces didn’t make skin contact) so logically a bird pooping on me and messing up a test should have nothing to do with each other. In fact, it should be the opposite. A rare occurrence should engender another rare occurrence, if anything. Avian crap=blessing from heaven.
After eating the meal that was the original reason for heading to the Seaport, I noticed that I had streaks of shit all over the collar of my coat and that a wad had caked strands of my hair together. I started feeling less blessed.
And yes, I pretty much bombed my Jeopardy test. They don’t give you instant results but I’d be surprised of I got more than 60% of the questions right. But I did feel good about knowing that Belize is name of former British Honduras, which I just randomly learned a couple nights ago when I cracked open a musty 1968 volume of Latin America from the Time-Life Foods of the World series. I was struck by the colorful map inside because I’d never even heard of British Honduras. (Very unrelated: every so often I get traffic coming here searching for Honduran Pussy. Foul as I can be, I'm pretty sure I've never written about such a subject.) So, that was one less wrong answer out of 50. Thank you Time-Life and thank you loose-bowled bird.
It was news to me that bird diapers exist, but duck clothing? And I thought dogs had all the fun.
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I was told growing up that a bird taking a dump on you was good luck. Probably this was concocted to lessen the humiliation of the situation. Or by detergent companies.
My cousin had an incident recently where one of her cats brought in a not-quite-dead-yet bird that came to life and shit all over her newly-painted livingroom walls (which somehow sounds physically impossible, yet she swears it’s true) and installed floor. She was able to touch up the walls with a kiddie paint brush…
Eek, that’s one more good reason to keep our cats in the house. However, I’m totally going the bird dump as good luck charm route.