Monday, December 29, 2008

It comes in 3's

My previous post was about a bit of bad luck bestowed upon me a week ago today. Actually, it feels like it all happened just last night. Nevertheless, when my circle of friends found out what happened, they all replied "That's it. You're the third."

Our group has a history of having bad/weird things happening to us in groups of three. For example a few years ago, we had what we called "the worst week ever." One of our close friends lost her battle with cancer. (That also happened on a Monday as I recall.) At the same time, another friend, Paula, was admitted to the hospital with a collapsed lung with later revealed itself to be associated an undiagnosed case of rare form of leukemia. (She's doing well health-wise, in case you are wondering.) Meanwhile our buddy, John had a skiing accident that left him with cracked ribs. Admittedly his was the least traumatic, but still not good regardless.

This year John was not so fortunate. After eleven years of service, his employer laid him off just five days before Christmas. That same day the strangest event happened to my friend Paula. She came home from work Friday night to situation straight out of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. She entered her apartment to find to a homeless woman sleeping in her bed! Evidently, a wonky door lock failed and the woman just wandered in and made herself to home. She sat in Paula's rocker, slept in her bed, and even helped herself to some oatmeal with chocolate chips and washed it all down with a Corona. The woman was disoriented and wearing a paper bracelet, like the ones you get in a hospital. She didn't take anything aside from the food. It appeared that all she wanted was a place to eat and sleep.

So my little black rain cloud (aka burst water pipes) was the third. Teresa, the fourth friend in our circle is safe. We've all had a good laugh over our coincidental misfortune. John's is scary, Paula's was scary and weird, and mine was messy.

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