What are the odds???
Jackie Wells-Fauth
Picture the following: there are three very good books in excellent shape lying on the table. Two are books I own; one is a book borrowed from the library. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a glass of iced tea is overturned. How do we know for sure which book will lap up that iced tea like a thirsty tourist? Odds are, it will be the book that isn’t mine.
I have lived with these odds my entire life. Some people call it Murphy’s Law—whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. I just call it “odds are”. And odds are if I borrow a book from the library, I’ll end up returning it explaining how that tea got on the bottom of the pages or how that mark appeared over the picture on the jacket or how there appears to be teeth marks and a bite out of the back cover. Don’t ask.
Most times the odds aren’t for anything too serious. I can live with the fact that if I drop a glass, it will break and glass shards will scatter across the floor like flour in a windstorm. But odds are that whatever was in the glass will not be water—it will be tea to stain something or orange juice to live forever in the crevices of the carpet or worse, the very last of the soda.
I’ve never had a serious car accident, but if I bump fenders against the post in the parking lot, it’s going to leave paint marks…and they will be of some garish color that I will never convince my husband came from a careless child walking by. Not too long ago, I bumped the good car (that’s right, we have a good car and then there’s my car) against a wooden work bench in the garage. Now normally, the odds would be that the car would get a serious dent, but this time, odds were in my favor and the car bore no mark. No need to mention it to Roy, right?
Except that a month later, when he moved the work bench for some unknown reason, he found it to be slightly embedded in the wall behind it. What are the odds that he will believe that the bench has been sitting there so long it just became naturally embedded? My odds stayed steady, because he had the temerity to ask me if I might have hit the work bench with his car! Can you believe it?
If I’m printing something important, odds are I’ll run out of ink or paper (probably both) halfway through. If my bank account doesn’t balance, odds are always that it’s in the bank’s favor, not mine. For a woman who figures the odds, I don’t do that well with numbers!
I realize that my little troubles tend to be pretty minor. Most of the major events in my life have turned out well, but that has allowed me to focus on the little, annoying things; like the odds are pretty good that if a light bulb burns out, I’ll have every type of light bulb in stock except the one I need. And odds are always that if I go to write a check while out shopping, I will mess up the check—and it will be the last one I had with me.
If I schedule or plan entertainment, odds always are that something will come along that pushes my schedule off balance. “No, you can’t go to the doctor for a medical emergency when I have scheduled an evening with friends. Just put some ice on that bump on your head and let’s go.” Odds are, someone out there is going to think my attitude is pretty heartless.
If I paint a room, odds are that I will run out of paint on the last wall…that is if the paint roller doesn’t break or the ladder doesn’t fold while I’m at the top. Odds are that if I really am looking forward to a meal, I will burn it and if I try a new foot cream I’ll break out in hives.
I really don’t think I would have had any better luck if I had been born in another time. Odds are if I had married a king, it would have been Henry VIII, or if I had climbed to the top of the highest mountain, odds are there would already be a flag planted there.
If I had been one of the travelers heading west in the pioneer days, odds are I would have been with the Donner party. I’ve never been able to decide whether it would have been worse to die and be eaten or to have to survive that way. Odds are, the Donner Party didn’t feel too lucky either way!
By now odds are that you are really beginning to be irritated by my whiny little rant, so I’ll have to cut it out now. But I’m telling you, odds are as soon as this gets in print, I’ll have thought of twenty more things that didn’t go in my favor! I have to go now anyway to return that book to the library. Odds are the librarian won’t believe that those pages are just naturally brown and stuck together!
dropsinthewell 