And other things unlucky people say.

One thing people often say is that good or bad things always happen in threes?

For example – October 2007 – National Television Debut, Proposal Accepted, Job Offer Tripling Salary. Good, Good, Good.

Another Example: Feb/March 2008 – Counteroffer to Proposal, Crane Falls on My Building, Ipod Stolen. Bad, Bad, Bad.

So I guess now I am due for a good streak again. But last night someone put my bullsh-t in perspective. I was waiting for my friend at a bar after work and I was talking to the bouncer for a few minutes. And he said to me, “Wow man! You are lucky.” And I asked him, “How do you figure?” And he, in his shot glass half-full perspective said, “You could have been in the building or at least have moved all your stuff in.”

(Side note – the man was a big black man, so clearly in the Hollywood version of my story we would cast a spiritually enlightened Michael Clark Duncan in the role).

As I sat down to dinner I continued to bitch about my life to my friend. When leaving the bar, the bouncer reminded me how luck I was and I said “yeah, maybe.” And then he told me the following story:

He served two years in Iraq in the current war. He was on the phone arguing with his wife because she wanted to take a trip to Puerto Rico with her “girlfriends” and he was thinking financially and emotionally, “No you can’t – I am over hearing dodging bullets and you want to take a vacation.” Right or wrong I understand the man’s feelings. Well, as it turns out because of his argument he missed his convoy and another man took his place. Well later that day, the convoy he was supposed to be on was bombed and the man taking his place died. The bouncer came home shortly thereafter and found out his wife did go to Puerto Rico, but with another man. He got a divorce and while sitting at a diner after the divorce he met the woman that he is now happily married to (I assume since he was wearing a wedding ring). So he said without that fight he would have been dead and never found out that his marriage was a hoax.

After his story I told him thanks for his service (because deep down I still think I want to be a politician and politicians always thank people for their military service). Maybe he could be in a new line of Army ads: “Want to feel grateful about life? Want to see if your marriage can survive real tests? Feel lucky? Then be all you can be…” It certainly put my situation in perspective.