Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Rock Luck

Pat's family often throws around this phase, "Rock Luck". Its often the reason for or against doing just about anything. It was easy to laugh at in the beginning, but as the years go by, I've seen "Rock Luck" come to fruition one too many times to sneer at anymore. Do not be confused. Rock Luck is many things, but it is never good.

What is particularly notable about this family tradition is that its a nuanced kind of bad luck. Its not your average, ordinary break an ankle or lose something, kind of bad luck. Its much more clever than that. If you break your ankle, you break it over on your moving day caring a feather-light stereo. If you lose your keys, you leave them on a train in a major US city, and losing them prevents you from leaving the major US for another day even though you took an expensive cab ride all the way to the worst part of town with your infant to get another key made (only to find out that your car had its ignition replaced by your father-in-law (who sold you the car but forgot about the new ignition when you called for help) so the key code they used to make your key doesn't work with the new ignition).

I used to think that I was immune to this family curse by virtue of only being a Rock by marriage, but it did not take long to catch up with me. (The key story as a perfect example.) So, with this knowledge, the events of the last month should not have come as any surprise to me. The fact that it took over 6 weeks to get a license plate for our new car because the bank screwed up the paperwork twice and then the BMV forgot to call when the paperwork was actually submitted correctly, should not have surprised me. And true to form, "Rock Luck" has a sense of humor. On the day that I found out that the paperwork was ready and I could go get my license plate (thus ending my constant glancing in the rear view mirror in hopes of avoiding traffic police for the past 6 weeks), my car battery was dead (thanks to my own negligence) and I had to walk to the BMV to complete my transaction rather than drive the vehicle I had been driving illegally for the past 6 weeks.

In an ongoing tale of truly mind blowing "Rock Luck", our child is psychic. But, being true to her last name, she can not use her powers for good...only for evil. And her powers are isolated to one type of premonition...knowing when we plan to leave her overnight somewhere. To thwart our plans and/or just make us feel like terrible parents, this child gets sick EVERY time we try to leave her anywhere. Round 1: We leave her, our perfectly healthy 5 month old, with my mom for an overnight trip to see The Pixies in Akron. In that less than 24 hour time period, she contracts her first ear infection, and literally has infection oozing out of her ears by the time we get back. The rest of the tales are similar. She gave the stomach flu, that we thought she was completely over, to my stepmom while we were in Cincinnati seeing the Heartless Bastards. And she contracted some other mystery illness while spending a couple of days with my mother-in-law while we took a weekend trip to Michigan. For our 6th wedding anniversary 2 weeks ago, we planned to leave her overnight with my mom, but she contracted the stomach flu 2 days prior to that -- thus causing us to stay home that night. Two nights later, we tried leaving her with my mom again, while we entertained out of town friends. She was up from 4-6 am that morning, screaming for my mom to come change her endless dirty diapers. The following Friday night, in an effort to commemorate our anniversary once again, the child got a bit more clever. She stayed at my mom's again and was fine, but her FATHER came down with the same stomach flu (9 days after she had had it) as soon as we completed our expensive dinner, thus ending our evening and curtailing our big "Sleep-in Saturday" plans. Tomorrow, the lovely little lass was supposed to venture south to spend a few days with my mother-in-law who has been BEGGING for my daughter to come stay at her house...but, alas, those endless dirty diapers from two weeks ago still plague her for reasons we're still trying to figure out, and she will not be able to venture south for her planned visit. All this from a child, who has more or less, been a reasonably healthy kid...rarely ever sick on a weekend that we don't actually have plans to ship her off somewhere.

This is not to say that our beloved offspring is the ultimate manifestation of "Rock Luck" or anything, but her timing...its perfect.

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