Lady Luck

....Yay! Yay! Yay!....

Several weeks ago, we went out for Chinese food, and at the end of the meal, they gave us more fortune cookies than there were people at the table. Mr. IQ opened one and immediately looked unhappy.

"Mine's terrible!" he complained, looking genuinely pissed off. Moments like this are always cause for great concern for me. Deep down I suspect that a true Alpha male, confident, rugged and wise, would not go into a big sulk over a crappy fortune cookie. Franklin D. Roosevelt would not have crumbled at the sight of a stupid slip of paper, not even one indicating that a Hawaiian naval base was under Japanese attack! Consequently, at such times I feel despair, followed by unspeakable guilt.

"What does it say?" I asked, burying my true feelings under a mask of curiosity, and he passed it over to me. Your lucky colour this week is purple it read.

"Well, we'll just have to dress you up like an Easter egg," I said pleasantly, "and purchase some lottery tickets."

Sometimes Mr. IQ has absolutely no sense of humour, and this was one of those times. Growling, he lunged for another cookie. "Ah, that's much better," he said beaming, and tossed it to me. It said: You will never have to worry about money.

"Yeah, swell, that's a great one all right," I said, glancing at the bill. Swearing, I spent the next ten minutes hunting for my bank card. That damn fortune was right -- during my frantic search, he didn't look worried at all, only a little superior.

"I told you to bring the card," he kept saying, smugly.


I can mock, but the reality is that we are total suckers around here for fortune telling. So yesterday at the thrift store when I found the Where My Heart Will Wander Fortune Box, I snapped it up without hesitation. It had three balls, red, green and black, which would roll into slots indicating, well, where your heart would supposedly wander. Green would happen first, red next and finally black. All three of us were itching to try it, although Mr. IQ, bless him, feigned a certain amount of indifference. I think he knew what I'd been thinking at the Chinese restaurant and was trying to ease my mind, re: the whole Rugged He-Man of the Canadian Prairies thing. Honestly, the way he can read my mind sometimes, you'd think I go around wearing a thong on my head.

We let High Intensity go first. She span the balls around with endearing concentration and ended up with her heart wandering

First: To exotic lands
Then: To something unexpected
And finally: To a cocktail lounge

The last part, naturally, made me giggle.

"What's a cocktail lounge, mom?" she asked and I said, "Where you go for a boozy beverage," because we're not really the types to sugarcoat the truth around here for the young 'uns.

"Oh, like a beer," she said, very pleased with her fortune, and handed the box over to her dad. He got his heart wandering:

First: to beautiful shoes
Then: to solitude
And finally: to cloud nine

Mr. IQ looked vaguely embarrassed. "I DO NOT have a shoe fetish!" he said defensively. Because I have a very pure mind, it took me a minute to understand what he was talking about, and when I did I felt vaguely revolted.

"Ugh," I said, wiggling my toes around uneasily in my (suddenly) damp-feeling sandals. "That's so gross..."

"Let me go again then," he said, and gave the balls a second twirl. This time he got:

First: To a cocktail lounge
Then: To beautiful shoes
And finally: To a deepening friendship

"Someone in the bar is gonna really like your shoes, obviously," I said, and grabbed the box before he could think about that too much. I then spent the next ten minutes trying to manipulate the balls into the places I wanted them to go.

"Where are you trying to land it?" Mr. IQ finally asked, watching my desperate moves with the last remaining ball.

"To chocolate cakes," I choked out impatiently. "Why can't I get it to go to chocolate cakes?"

He watched me curiously until he couldn't stand it anymore. "You know," he said carefully, and only a little bit patronizingly, "the best way to a chocolate cake is perhaps via a car ride to the nearest bakery."

I ignored him. He knew why I wanted things to work out for me in the fortune ball department, just as I knew, deep down, why at the restaurant he had wanted a good cookie fortune. For us, our lives are all about luck luck luck, and fate fate fate. It's how we get through our days, it's our modus operandi: Frankly, it's the only way we know how to live. We are not the types of people who go out and conquer the world, we're the types who sit back and just let things happen. Consequently, good fortunes are excellent and very necessary morale boosters as we weave our unplotted and unplanned journey through life. I blame this pathetic lifestyle choice, incidentally, on the fact that both of us were accidents, people who made it into this world despite no planning on the part of our parents. Consciously or not, we believe that since we both managed, despite some pretty overwhelming odds, to get ourselves conceived, everything else will probably fall into place for us too.

Surprisingly, it usually does.

Honestly, it's sometimes kind of scary how things work out. When we're totally broke and I'm soberly whipping up flour balls for supper because there is no money for groceries, a cheque will suddenly arrive unexpectedly in the mail. If we need a daycare worker because I happen to be returning to work in seventeen hours, an ad will miraculously appear on a telephone pole in front of our house. If I'm craving ketchup potato chips and it's midnight and I really don't feel like jumping in the car because it's -45 C outside, well --- well-- well then I'll probably have to forgo the chips, actually. Most unfortunately, it only works for the really big things in life.

Big things like my job: Back when I was an unemployed bum, living with my parents and fast approaching 30, my friend put my name on the substitute teacher list at the school he taught at. My parents forced me to pick up the phone when they knew the school was calling me to work. (Not rocket science: who else calls at six in the morning?) And then their math/science teacher went and thoughtfully had a nervous breakdown. As a result, I came in to sub for him and just never left. Very tidy. No application letters, no resume, no cruddy interview. Which is very good, because if I am certain of one thing in this world, it is that I would give a pretty lousy interview.

("What's your discipline style, Ms Whippersnapper?" they would ask, and I would bleat out, "Beat them 'til they bleed, ahaahahahaha," and they'd say, "Hey! Thanks for coming in!" and that would be that.)

So back in March when my principal told me he would not consider giving me part time next year, I really couldn't face the thought of sending out my resume to different school divisions. No, I resigned myself to staying where I was and miserably slogging my way through a full time assignment, dealing with not one but TWO daycare workers and living a life of chaos with underwear in the crisper, etc., etc., ugh ugh ugh. Silly me for worrying: given my track record, I should have known something would happen. And it did. My principal called two days ago and, what do you know:

I GET TO GO BACK PART TIME NEXT YEAR AFTER ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HUZZZAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!

I am so grateful, I rushed out at once and got the BIGGEST box of wine I could find (Northwest Territory Estates, 2008) which I plan to give my wonderful principal later this week as a token of my thanks.

Oh, you have no idea what a relief this is.

Wow, am I happy!