Monday, June 2, 2008

Good Luck Charms

We knew each other in high school, although we were from different towns [hers, mine]. In college, she served me pitchers and asked me to teach her some math. She liked my rocket science. I liked the way she used her words.

We ran into each other years later on a hot Foggy Bottom day. She was selling fresh-squeezed lemonade with long slices of watermelon wedged on the cup. We went to see the ponies with Gaucho playing in our ears.

She moved to Louisiana. I moved to Texas. Many years passed. But you see, she finds things, and she managed to find me online several years ago.

And now recently, I got a package in the mail from her — things for good luck just as Trudy and I were about to leave for Baltimore to talk to the doctors there. She sent a green cloverleaf cutout that I bet her daughter made. And there was a guardian angel and a tiny horseshoe welded to an old penny. And there was a glow-in-the-dark Jesus and a chubby, laughing Buddha and some colorful Feng Shui things that she said she couldn't explain. And she sent me a little box of Lucky Charms.

I ate the cereal. I put Jesus and Buddha on the shelf next to the angry mullah, all of them surveying a dusty parade of elephants.

photo of jesus and buddha on the shelf

We went to see the doctors. And things didn't go so bad.

So you know, no offense to the mullah or Buddha or Jesus (not to mention the elephants), but I wonder if the leprechauns were watching after all.


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