Little Luck

Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you get away with one. Sometimes, you start three sentences in a row with the same word. Sometimes, you go for four. Because you digress.

Last night, yours truly had the privilege of umpiring an extra-inning little league game that went down to the wire and earned me a whopping $45 cash (hey, at least I’m staying out of trouble). After finishing the game, shaking a few hands and stabbing a few puppies with glass shards (it’s a post-game ritual of mine), I realized I did not have my car keys in my pocket. This is a problem because, well, I can’t drive the car without the keys (I mean, I can, but I’m not gonna break my own ignition open—that’s just stupid). When I got to my car, I discovered my keys sitting innocuously on my sunroof (finally, a chance to use the word innocuously. I’ve been waiting for that for three years. You just witnessed Nate Way history. Go tell your friends). Needless to say, I was relieved.

Now, this ballpark is not in a bad neighborhood. In fact, it’s located in a recent development called New Tampa (motto: Cleaner and Nicer Smelling than Old Tampa). But still, I didn’t expect roughly one thousand people to ignore the fact that my keys were on top of my car. But, like I typed, sometimes you get lucky. And I got lucky.

When I was ten, I once found fifty bucks on the floor of a supermarket. That was some luck. I’ve had cops pull me over and let me off with a warning twice in my life. That was lucky. One time, I was arrested in St. Louis on meatloaf night. That wasn’t luck so much as the law of averages (meatloaf night was a weekly tradition in St. Louis County holding), but nevertheless it was tasty. Anyways, I guess what I’m fighting to say here is that I’d rather be lucky than good. And I was lucky that no punk kid decided they’d just earned themselves a free vehicle.

And so, I’m taking this moment to thank the cosmos.

Thanks cosmos. I owe you one.