Today as I was driving along I saw something fluttering in the road. It looked like money and there was no one around chasing after it. I flipped a quick u-turn, pulled over, and got out of the car to pick it up. It was a twenty!
Woohoo! I looked around to make sure no one was walking down the street checking their pockets and then I stashed that baby in the side pocket of the diaper bag and happily drove myself home.
It was this little stroke of luck that has inspired me to tell a story that illustrates the fact that I am perhaps the luckiest person alive.
In high school, I used to go to raves, those all-night, illegal dance parties, often held in a warehouse or out in the middle of the desert. I considered myself straight edge (no drugs or alcohol) so I didn't partake in the whole X scene. I just liked the music and liked to dance and stay out late. Often, the parties required you to go to one location to pay for entrance and then they would give you directions to the location of the rave. (So secret! So stealthy!)
One night, towards the end of my senior year, I went to a rave where I was given a plastic wrist band (like a hospital bracelet) to show that I had paid to get in. In the days after the rave, I left it on as a "I'm-so-cool-I-go-to-raves" bracelet. The following weekend, a girlfriend and I went to go see The
Lemonheads playing at the Hard Rock Cafe. (Yes, this was the 90s. So?)
While waiting in line, we spent our time filling out dozens of entry forms for a contest sponsored by the radio station that was hosting the show. I put my own name in over and over, then I put in all my friends, my mom, my dad, anyone I could think of. At one point, my pen ran out of ink so I went up to the lady guarding the door to ask to borrow a pen. When she handed it to me, she took one look at my rave bracelet and said, "You have a VIP bracelet? You can go ahead and go in for the sound check, if you want." Luckily, I was quick on my feet, so I said, "My girlfriend is in line with me, but she didn't get a bracelet." She told me to go get her, and when I did she slapped a wrist band on her too and in we went. After watching the sound check and the entire show, we were ushered into the backstage area where I remember thinking Evan
Dando was a jerk because he was ragging on the bag o' swag that the Hard Rock had bestowed on him. Did I mention that we didn't have to pay to get in? Oh, and we found out later that it was an 18 and over show, so we shouldn't have even gotten in the door.
Pretty lucky, huh? Oh, just wait.
Two days later my mom gets a call: "You're one of 91 people to have a chance to win a new
Camaro!" Of those 91, only 5 got a key to try in the
Camaro's door. And of those 5... only my mom's key worked. (I can still picture her hands shaking as she put the key in the lock.) We drove that sucker around for a few weeks before selling it for some cold hard
cashola. The doors were so heavy they would knock you down if you didn't open them all the way. And if you just barely grazed the accelerator you would slam back into the seat like a fighter pilot.
I kept wearing that bracelet all the way through my high school graduation. If you look closely, you can see it in the pictures from the ceremony. And walking next to me (in our assigned-by-the-school order) is this dude who I barely knew who has the SAME EXACT BRACELET. Who is this mysterious dude? Oh, that would be my husband.
(Can you see it? Above Jeremy's watch?)
Told ya I was lucky.
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Yeah, I'm in the swing, but I'm not going to be happy about it.
