Arthur Luck

Arthur Luck—if anything can go wrong, it will, and at the most inopportune time

Arthur Luck appears to be a genetically heritable characteristic and can vary in its manifestation and extremity. Unlike most afflictions, Arthur Luck is utterly predictable. Arthur Luck WILL happen. The only questions are when, where, and how.

I remember when my parents left one of my brothers on the front porch when they went to church. Three hours later, he was still there, locked out and upset that his family had deserted him. Or, when my family came to see me off before a trip to Thailand, and my sister spent the whole time at the airport puking into a trash can.

Arthur Luck can also have a more extreme effect. When I was young, my brother and I both contracted chicken pox just before Christmas vacation. We were literally packing the car when he said those two meaningful little words, “I’m itchy.” My family had to cancel their trip. Later, on a hike to the top of Mt. Timpanogos, my cousin took a detour to the top of a waterfall and ended up accidentally nose-diving off a 20-foot cliff. Fortunately, we were about a quarter mile from the parking lot. More recently, my aunt broke her ankle in her driveway on the way to the airport for her anniversary trip to Hawaii with her husband. They spent their 50th in the hospital instead.

I keep hoping I will somehow escape the family curse.

Which brings me to yesterday…

I was at work late yesterday. The building lights blinked once. I knew that in 5 minutes, they would turn off. So I got up, went down the hall, and pressed the light switch so the lights would stay on for another hour. I came back and unlocked the door and thought, “I’m sure glad I have my keys with me…”

An hour later, the lights blinked again, and I went to press the light switch. I walked back to my door, stuck my hands in my pocket, and stopped.

Sometime during the previous hour, I had become so uncomfortable in my snug-fitting pants that I had emptied the pockets. D’oh!

I searched the areas of the building I could still access, looking for someone or something that could help. I found my coworker Trent and asked if he could unlock my office door.

“Nope. None of these keys work on your door, and no one will be here with the right keys until tomorrow. Guess you can go home now.”

“Uh… How exactly am I supposed to go home? My keys are in the office. Same with my wallet and phone. My wife doesn’t get off work until 9, and it takes her an hour to get here.”

“Guess you’ll have to wait then.” He rushed back to his group activity.

“Or I could scale the wall,” I retorted.

He didn’t hear me.

The more I thought about scaling the wall, the less ridiculous it seemed. I set up a table in front of my door, stacked a couple chairs on top of it, and moved the ceiling tile. Then I climbed on top of the chairs. With my torso halfway through the frame, I pulled up a tile from the ceiling above my office.

As I was trying to muster the courage to pull myself up into the ceiling, I heard a door open and close behind me.

I climbed down and found the night watchman, Steve, who was very, very concerned.

Luckily, he recognized me. I sheepishly explained the situation to him. He didn’t have the master key, but he did offer to help me.

“”Not much upper-body strength, eh?”

“Nope.” I replied.

He climbed into the ceiling and then carefully lowered himself down the other side of the wall and proudly opened the door. After an effusion of gratitude, I got my keys and stuffed them into my pocket. I had just wasted a half-hour and wanted to go home and put the whole situation behind me.

Hopefully, that would be the last catastrophe, at least for a while.

The next morning, I headed to work as usual. To get around a slow-moving vehicle on the freeway, I moved into the left lane. Suddenly everyone in front of me came to a complete stop. I slammed on the breaks, started to veer to the left, but couldn’t go too far because of the commuter lane. Despite my most evasive tactics, I smashed into the car in front of me.

We both pulled off to the side of the road. I got out and apologized profusely. She was gracious and grateful no one was hurt. I had only sliced her bumper and crumpled the corner of mine. After exchanging insurance, we headed back on our way.

Lucky me.