Andy Young: That foreboding feeling

By Andy Young

There are different degrees of adversity which human beings have to deal with from time to time. Stubbing a toe or hitting one’s thumb with a hammer are, in the grand scheme of things, mild mishaps that most rational people can deal with. However, the severity of the aftermath can vary, given the circumstances. For example, a small hammer hitting an exposed thumb is a temporary annoyance, but an inconveniently located foot getting pounded by a careless sledgehammer-wielder is a calamity.

Losing one’s phone or wallet can seem like the end of the world in the moment, although those sorts of things tend to work themselves out eventually. The same goes for certain physical setbacks, like sprained or fractured limbs. But some bits of ill fortune have lasting consequences, like domestic violence, divorce, natural disasters, or chronic and/or terminal diseases.

When something unfortunate happens to me, the first thing I do is honestly ask myself if I deserved it. For example, let’s say an important appliance stops working for no apparent reason. If I’ve been unfair to someone, not alerted the cashier at the grocery store when she gave me more change than I was entitled to, or teased someone because they’re a New York Jets fan, well then, I had it coming.

However, if I genuinely cannot come up with a single reason why misfortune has befallen me, I begin quivering with anticipation, because I firmly believe that: A) over time, the breaks even up, and B) sooner or later karma, both the good and the bad variety, eventually impacts people judiciously. If I’ve been unlucky and there’s no justification for it, I know for certain that something good is coming my way.

An instance of this happened not long ago. My furnace had stopped working, which was four digits to the left of the decimal point worth of bad news. But I truly couldn’t remember doing anything to deserve it, and lo and behold, a week later I got a call from the new bookkeeper for someone I had done business with, wondering why I hadn’t cashed the substantial check they had sent three years earlier. The answer, of course, was I had never gotten it, so after double-checking their records and apologizing profusely, they sent me $3,000.

A similar example: my car got a flat tire at a time that was extraordinarily inconvenient. (Which begs the question: is there ever a convenient time to get a flat tire?) On that occasion I again searched my memory for reasons I might have merited misfortune but found none. Shortly thereafter, a local grocery store sent me a $50 gift certificate for some silly contest I had long since forgotten entering.

I haven’t had much bad luck lately; in fact, the opposite has been true. Just last week I found a dime in the parking lot at school, and two quarters at the gas station when I was filling up my car. Then the next morning the New York Rangers wristband I thought I had lost weeks ago tumbled out of a clean shirt I was putting on. Why wristbands feel the need to hide inside larger articles of clothing while they spin in the dryer is anyone’s guess, but the fact is they do so far too frequently for it to be coincidence.

The only problem with this spate of recent good fortune: I’ve meticulously combed my memory but haven’t come up with a single reason I deserve all of this good luck. And, as mentioned previously, in my experience the breaks ultimately always even up.

Uh oh. <