DO YOU FEEL LUCKY?

Do you ever feel lucky for getting stuck in traffic?  Forgetting something and having to go back for it?  Waiting for someone who's running late yet again?

I know some people feel this on a huge scale, but I'm not really waxing philosophical about karma and destiny.  I'm talking about feeling lucky on a smaller scale.  Take this afternoon, for example.

It's snowing out ... again ... and I'm stuck at school.  Worse, I have to drive forty-plus minutes in the opposite direction from home to go to grad class in this weather.  I love the class.  I just seriously hate driving in this shit.  Seriously hate it.  I decide I should probably give myself a better head start today, maybe leave work fifteen minutes sooner so I can crawl through the snow. 

First of all, it's not supposed to be snowing here at all.  There is supposed to be a dusting possibly as far north as Boston, which is twenty miles south of where I am when it's snowing and I think of this.  I start rushing around trying to leave school right after the buses, which is fifteen minutes before my regular leave-time.  This does not work.  I still leave at the exact same time, especially when factoring in car clean-off time.

Secondly, people are flying around the streets in their cars, outrunning the set speed limits through the freshly-fallen snow.  Maybe even throw in something wildly unsafe and unpopular (illegal, even) like texting while driving.  In these conditions, one shouldn't even be talking on a cell phone.  Not that anyone was.  I'm merely stating some possible solutions to what I happen upon while driving.

I am driving thirty miles per hour because it's snowing steadily, and also because that's the legal posted limit for this stretch of back road that connects routes 62 and 114.  Up ahead I see the familiar flash of blue lights that indicate a police presence.  Someone must've been speeding.

Or not.

In addition to the cruiser, there is a flatbed truck.  The truck operator is trying to fish a shiny black car out of a tree (a low tree, but a tree, just the same) and over a stone wall.  There is another black car on the other side of the street, half-on and half-off the road, its side totally bashed in.  The police officer is letting us by one car at a time, and I wish I'd left work earlier.

But, on the other hand, if I had left work fifteen minutes early as I had planned, I would probably be in the middle of this fiasco.  The police would be turning my car right-side up and hoisting my lard-ass out of the woods.

Sometimes I feel lucky: for winning lottery tickets, for finding forgotten cash in a pocket, for having friends.  Today I feel lucky for the fifteen minutes I was trying to gain but lost while heading to grad school.  I just keep looking at the accident scene and am glad to be sitting in traffic rather than causing it all.  If I'd left when I wanted to, one of those cars could be mine.

For me, it's an awful nice change of karma.