Monday, July 2, 2012

Lady Luck


Consider the evidence: My daughter loses her iPhone (a fortunate person indeed to even own an iPhone) in a taxi cab at midnight. I spend the next morning tracing the phone with gps, getting the address where it had come to rest, doing a reverse lookup of everyone who lives at that address, calling the phone company to report the loss and see if outgoing calls had been made, etc.  


My daughter slept in. When she woke up she called her own number, and a guy picked it up. He wasn’t the cab driver but a guy the cab driver had given the phone to. That guy in turn gave it to a third guy, who drove it into the city and returned it to my daughter a few hours later. 


O.K., it can happen that you lose something and someone returns it. But to have a three-person chain that doesn’t break down? 


There’s more: Last month that same daughter was headed to the airport to catch a plane to visit a friend. She left late, got on the wrong train, which dumped her at the wrong station, took a random bus, and ended up on the plane in plenty of time, having somehow saved $5 doing it her way.


And then there’s this: After a festive spring break, she leaves her passport in the pocket of the seat in front of her. She doesn’t notice. Never misses it. A cleaner finds it, somehow figures out our phone number, which was not in the passport, and arranges for us to pick it up.


She actually seems mystified by my mystification. Isn’t this how life is supposed to work?

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