May | 2009 | Running With Books

Can an item, an object, a rather meaningless piece of metal and rock, formed into a piece of jewelry, be a source of bad luck? History would seem to suggest it’s possible. There’s the curse of the Hope Diamond. And the legend that surrounds October’s birthstone, the opal, and which my mother told me when I was young: Opals bring bad luck to those who wear them if they aren’t your actual birthstone.

Is it true?

When I was five I begged, Begged, BEGGED my mother to let me wear her opal earrings to school one day. She relented, and of course, I lost one of them. Was that because I was born in June and so should have been wearing pearls instead? Or was it because I was only five and probably shouldn’t have been trusted with a pair of nice earrings?

And how about the bad luck that fell upon the Brady Brunch after Bobby found that Tiki idol on the construction site in Hawaii? Greg almost drowned while wearing the thing, a spider crawled into Jan’s bag while she was carrying the idol, and Alice threw her back out when she had it hanging around her neck.

I’m thinking of all of these things because of a ring I bought. It’s a rustic looking ring, hand made by an artist who sells his wares on the internet. It’s copper with a green stone of Seraphinite, all coils and beads, and my husband says it reminds him of Star Wars. It reminds me of a clock’s works. I won’t say where I purchased it because I don’t want to be accused of suggesting the artist is selling cursed jewelry in any sort of way, but I need to document the events that have occurred since the ring arrived in the mail:

1. My husband wrecked my car. My still new car, the one we had just bought back in the fall.

I had JUST checked the mail and was rather excited to see the package with my ring had arrived when I looked up to see my husband backing my car out of the garage. A split second later I heard an awful crunching sort of sound, and then I saw him stop the car, half in and also half out of the garage, while the garage door came down upon the car’s roof. And then I watched as my husband started to inch the car forward, back into the garage, with the garage door upon the roof of the car, scraping the paint off the roof as he went along.

“STOP! STOP!” I screamed. “What are you doing? STOPPPPPPPP!”

He stopped. But by then the damage was done. The passenger door mirror was broken off the side of the car and the roof looked like Freddy Krueger had been giving it a good back scratch.

Afterward, my husband said that I must not have pulled the car into the garage very straight. Which explains why, if the car isn’t straight, you’d back it out straight to correct the problem, ripping side view mirrors off in the process, no? And then, for added insult, you’d go ahead and close the garage door onto the top of the car. Perhaps trying to hide the fact that the mirror damage came first? Was this my fault for parking slightly crooked? The garage door’s fault? My husband’s fault?

Or maybe, just maybe, this new ring is bad luck…

2. I nearly broke my toe off on a chair leg. I walk past this particular chair 20 times a day and it’s never grabbed my toe before, but this time, it made a special exception. This was minutes after my husband broke my car. By this time I was wearing the ring.

3. Still wearing the ring, because apparently I never learn, I smacked my son in the face as I was talking with my hands. The ringed hand didn’t get him, but still, I left a nice red mark near his eye. Why did he sneak up behind me like that? Did the ring CALL to him?

Those are the things that happened soon after the ring arrived in the mail and I put it on. I haven’t had the nerve to wear the ring since, but it’s still in the house and since then:

4. The printer ink cartridge exploded all over my son’s hands in a rainbow of colors and it took many washings and half a bottle of rubbing alcohol to get the ink off.

5. A button popped off the top of our brand new leather ottoman coffee table and I can’t figure out how to get it back on.

6. Five of the new fish we bought have died.

7. I got a terrible sunburn.

8. There’s a nest of stinging flying insects hiding in our bushes.

9. A giant black spider crawled across the computer desk right in front of me. So I’m ending this here because SPIDER!!!!!, and Jan Brady … and hell, I’m not THAT slow. I know what I need to do next. I have to go get the ring and return it to the ancient burial ground in Hawaii…

So, Mother’s Day is coming. This Sunday, to be exact. It snuck up on me this year, it truly did. I ran out and bought cards at noon today, thinking I was still brilliant because the mail man doesn’t show up until two o’clock p.m. around these parts. I’d mail the cards, they’d arrive no later than Friday, maybe Saturday, and be just in time for Mother’s Day, and nobody would be the wiser.

Of course, TODAY the mail man came by early. I missed him. Now I have to drive to the post office. Earlier today I had to drive the dog to the vet. Then I had to drive to the store to buy Mother’s Day cards. Now I have to go out AGAIN to the post office. All because of the mail man who can’t keep to his normal routine. And yes, I’ll just go ahead and blame the trip to the vet on the mail man too at this point. Because you know that if I was anxiously awaiting delivery of some important piece of mail or a package, the mail man would conveniently show up late. It’s the way of the universe, and so everything will be the mail man’s fault today.

Speaking of package delivery… yesterday FedEx delivered a package. They left it at my front door. They also left a door tag ON my front door saying “We left your package at front door.” I’m wondering, was that really necessary? Do people truly miss the obvious? I bet their lawyers made them add the door tags after someone left a box sitting on their front porch for weeks, all the while calling FedEx demanding to know where their package was.

My husband is expecting a package to be delivered as well. I think it’s a Mother’s Day gift for me. He asked me if it had arrived today. I told him no, it hadn’t come yet. But now that I think about it, I ought to go outside and check around the perimeter of the property. It’s entirely possible that FedEx delivered it and stuck it in the bushes, with a note attached to the bushes, saying “We left your package in the bushes.” I’ll take a look when I get back from the post office.

And finally, this… I saw a car the other day with a license plate that said “SMALL PKG”. I felt sorry for the driver. I felt even worse that he thought that was something he ought to advertise. If there is any bonus to the fact that he had a small package, I guess it’s this: If it’s small, it’s probably easy for him to hide it in the bushes.