Just My Luck

So, throughout the course of my life, I've been a pretty lucky chickadee.  You know, beyond the normal stuff, like being lucky to have a great family (most of the time), a roof over my head, a job...the standards. I am thankful for those things, don't get me wrong, but that's not the kind of luck I'm talking about.

I always doubt those people who hit the jackpot and say "I've never won anything before!" because I've had quite the opposite experience.  Granted, I'm not hiding a closet full of lottery winnings from you because Lord knows, if it existed I would be sitting in a much nicer chair in a much nicer room in a much nicer building on a much nicer computer.  But, I digress.  Looking back, I've won countless things.

There was the time that I won a Bingo grand prize on a cruise; my first attempt at a slot machine that spit out $150 in my lap after only requiring about 3 dimes on my part; scratch off lottery tickets have always been easy (Insider's hint:  always buy the ones with serial numbers less than 100.  Check out the wall of winners at your nearest convenience store, and I guarantee they all start with a zero.); the awards that I've won, the art contests, writing contests and oh, the radio contests.  For about three years, I dominated the radio contests hosted by the local country station in my hometown.  The DJ's recognized my voice.  They knew my address by heart.  I invited them to my high school graduation.  I won an astronomical amount of CDs, concert tickets, trips, and other randomness that I almost felt like I was cheating.  But, I wasn't.  I had a knack for hitting that redial button (remember those?!) with the exact right timing.  (Another insider's hint:  get in at the beginning and you're set.  If the DJ answers and tells you you're caller 4, and they're looking for caller 10, three more tries from you and you've probably got it.  Figure they answer two calls for every one you make. And landlines always work better than cell phones.)  Needless to continuing saying, I have a pretty lucky streak.

But, in the game of love/like/lust/whatever you want to call it, this luck runs aground.  Obviously.  Unless you're new to this blog (if you are, you're welcome to check out my previous posts that reiterate this point!), it's pretty clear that I've swung and missed more times than I've hit home runs.  Over the last few weeks, this has been painfully obvious and as I share these pitfalls with you, I also share them with friends outside of the blogosphere.  Often times, I find myself saying things like "Well, you know my luck..." and lately others have been quoting this as well, much to my dismay, as they learn that I tend to be the one pulling the short end of the stick in the dating competition.  My complaints run the gamut, but mostly they involve not being able to catch and secure a guy's attention for longer than the course of one dinner date.  Well, yesterday I had a physical embodiment of my (clears throat) luck within a few short hours of complaining about how much I'd like a guy to just pay me some PG-13 rated attention.  I should have kept my mouth shut.

My morning commute consists of a ridiculously long drive from an area that just a few short years ago was probably considered "the boonies" compared to Metro Atlanta.  As more and more commuters move to my area, the traffic has become almost unfathomable.  I've seen a lot of crazy things on the road, but most of them included a vehicle of some kind, like the day a tractor trailer sitting in dead-still traffic actually put the thing in reverse and almost pummeled the poor Lincoln Towncar behind him.  But, even that doesn't compare to yesterday. 

As I sat at a light at a busy surface street intersection yesterday, I noticed a very disheveled man standing on the corner three lanes over from me.  He had that "mountain man" look, with a big, curly, overgrown head of hair in need of cutting and an even more impressive beard of the same color.  He was obviously dirty, and his clothes were ragged and almost falling off his body.  He was flailing about and, for a minute, made me nervous that he was going to throw himself in traffic.  Oh no, he had much more shocking endeavors in mind.  He continued his strange bodily movements and started swinging his hands around his face and watching his fingers as if they were some fabulous form of entertainment he'd just discovered.  As he did this, his clothes began to shift and I noticed that his boxer shorts were exposed.  Just as the thought of "Oh, God" passed through my mind, this man reached around the front of his pants, grabbed a handful of the cloth in his crotch and yanked them down as hard as he could, fully exposing himself to the poor victims sitting at the light. 

Shocked, I literally starting yelling in my car, by myself.  I averted my eyes quickly, hoping that 1). no one had seen that I had seen it and 2). no one in the cars around me worked with me.  The light remained aggravatingly red entirely too long, but as soon as it showed a hint of green, I floored it and took off towards the office.

The dating gods heard my laments for PG-13 attention from a man.  I'm just thankful that I didn't say R-rated; I shutter to think what I'd have witnessed.