Eshtine

triduum

The copper glint catches my eye as I step out of Vicki's car. "Ooh, lucky penny," I say, stooping to pick it up.

Seems a strange place and time for it--the wasteland of broken glass and assorted debris on the side of Highway 70, Maundy Thursday, the morning a tire on my mom's car blew on my way to work.

Had it not been potentially life-threatening the near-accident would have been funny: the only reason I was driving Mom's car was because I'd just taken mine to the shop. I was trundling happily down the highway, not a quarter of a mile from my exit, when I heard the pop and the sigh of escaping air and felt the car's insistent pull to the right.

I find the penny back where I'd abandoned the little blue Metro. I'd talked my co-worker into driving me here to wait for the tow truck. The truck has arrived. I slip my penny in my pocket and open the cab door to sign the paperwork. I see another copper glint as I hop back out. "Ooh, lucky penny."

Soon the tow truck driver is kneeling by the Metro, lug wrench in hand. I've sent Vicki back to work. I wonder how I should keep myself amused. Shall I stare into space? Nah. I look down. Yes, there's another penny, and another. I walk the strip of wasteland casually; without the slightest effort I'm up to nine pennies. Nine will never do, of course. The fee for the inconvenience of this morning is at least ten cents. The tenth is in a spot I had passed over earlier; the eleventh shows up immediately afterward. By the time the man straightens up and puts the old tire in my mom's trunk, there are seventeen pennies in my pocket, all found within about a 25-foot stretch. "Hope the rest of your day goes better," he says before driving off, and I almost laugh out loud. How could it? I'm rich!

But I find four more pennies just outside the door of the tire shop that night.

read the rest at Thunderstruck.org.

Posted by eshtine at April 17, 2003 05:45 AM