Luck is as luck does

By isak, April 18, 2009

According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, luck is defined as:

luck
Pronunciation: ‘lek
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English lucke, from Middle Dutch luc; akin to Middle High German gelücke luck
Date: 15th century

1. a: a force that brings good fortune or adversity b: the events or circumstances that operate for or against an individual
2. favoring chance

The Visual Thesaurus takes it a step further by creating a visual for the word “luck.” I don’t fully understand it, but this is a great site for playing with words and learning new associations. You can make your own visual. Once you have created a work of art from a simple word search, you can email it or print it on a t-shirt or a card. Then you can become your own walking thesaurus.

So luck… what about it?

Luck is something I ponder from time to time: in those instances where you mutter, “Is this really my luck?” or “Wow, how lucky was that?” If you slow down for a minute and notice, you will realize that luck is woven throughout each day. For example, yesterday.

I stopped working yesterday to go to the bathroom. I walked into the bathroom, flipped on the light and found myself standing in water… and there was a sound I did not recognize. My brain said, “Now what?” On my last visit to the bathroom, I had put the small glass water bowl (for the cats) in the sink. Frankie likes to play with it and slides it either off the edge of the vanity to the ceramic floor or into the sink. It’s easier to leave it in the sink. While this generally works, it seems that yesterday one or a couple of the cats somehow moved the handle on the faucet for the hot water to full on. And somehow, the water bowl slide over the hole on the sink and was completely blocking it. The sink filled up. The water was running faster than the little emergency overflow hole could handle… and water was cascading over the edge of the vanity. It covered quite a bit of the bathroom floor and was spilling into the hall as well as moving under the wall into the adjoining pantry — under the flooring but on top of the subfloor. On its way across the vanity, it found a couple cracks and was spilling into the cabinet under the vanity soaking the radio and blow dryer, and also saturating a nearby dog bed.” Is this really my luck?”

Without a doubt some of the stupidest, most unlikely things occur in my little world. Often “is this really my luck” is replaced with a single syllable, four-letter word that starts with “ph–” (that’s phonetical). It’s short, sweet and to the point. The kids recognize this word, even if just barely uttered, as a bad thing and they become scarce.

It rained yesterday. A lot… 4-5 inches. The ground was pretty dry at the start and did a good job of drinking it up overnight. However, at some point between dusk and dawn, a tree in the neighbors’ yard fell over. One of the limbs struck the fence post on Otis and Layla’s yard. The impact broke the branch and the post spared the fence a lot of damage. If that branch had missed the post and struck the fence, it could have smashed the fence and Otis and Layla might have fled their yard in fear. Who knows where they would have run. The water bowl on their front porch was knocked over in a direction that suggests one of them was running away from the crash. But I have no idea when this occurred. Were Otis and Layla inside their house or were they sitting on the front porch? So I say, “Wow, how lucky was that?”

The local news has just broken in to warn of a “rain-wrapped tornado” heading this way. Luckily, it looks to be tracking south of me.

Luck is everywhere, everyday. Here’s wishing good luck to you.

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Small question here: is it luck when a cat wretches her breakfast from atop the fridge and one of the dogs finds it and eats it before I know what has happened? Maybe so.
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