I Should Be So Lucky

Luck . . .

It seems like it's never on my side. If I drop a piece of buttered toast, and this happens more often than I'd like to admit, it usually lands butter-side down. I also enter my fair share of contests, drawings, and games of chance but never win any.

Until Wednesday, that is. And it happened twice.

On Wednesday afternoon, I checked in for my usual bi-weekly plasma donation appointment, because that's just the kind of giving and chivalrous guy I am, to learn that I had won a random drawing for a $75 Visa gift card to spend on anything I wished.

Wednesday was also, coincidentally, my niece Kylee's 16th birthday, so I used part of the funds on the card to take her out to lunch and to buy her a gift card of her own at the mall. Like I said, giving and chivalrous guy and all that.

Later Wednesday night, some friends and I made our monthly visit to the Nickelmania arcade out in Midvale. I *ahem* used some of the funds from my aforementioned gift card to pay for my entrance fee, as well as a bag full of nickels to spend. Among other classic arcade favorites, I tackled The Simpsons Game as Homer, beating the game alone from start to finish.

Yes, sometimes, the Angry White Loner does things to remind himself about the loner part of his name.

Anyway, I finished off Mr. Burns at about 10:55 p.m., just five minutes prior to closing time at Nickelmania. And I still had a bag of nickels, more than half full, in my possession.

I then moved over to one of the games of chance at said location, one that requires three nickels per turn and which then allows you to push a button to drop a bouncy ball, which lands in one of several open holes and wins you a certain number of tickets. In four minutes' time, I managed to dispense of most of my remaining nickels and won forty or so tickets in the process.

Down to my final two nickels, and needing three nickels to take a final turn, I remembered that I still had an extra nickel in my wallet, and I played one final turn. At 10:59 p.m., just seconds before closing time, the ball bounced into the Monster Jackpot, giving me a whopping 1,260 additional tickets.

My good fortune gave me enough tickets to buy a safe piggy bank gift for my friend Modern-Day Muse, whose birthday also fell on Wednesday. Close to 1,000 other tickets were left over to save for my next visit to Nickelmania. 'Cause there ain't no swag like Nickelmania swag.

All told, I may have used up my decade's-worth quota for good luck in one 24-hour period. If that's the case, then so be it.

I'd rather be lucky than good.

Smile, Darn Ya, Smile

Do you ever stop and take a look around and realize that there are plenty of miserable people out there? Judging by many people's facial expressions, you'd think that most folks are, indeed, very unhappy with their lives or their jobs or the stock market or any number of things that can cause a person stress or unhappiness.

From the point-of-view of someone who lives with depression, I sometimes feel like it is not possible for me to get as chemically depressed as some others choose to be emotionally.

As I was out running errands today, I couldn't help but notice the frowns or general lack of any kind of positive emotion or expression on the faces of many people I interacted with. Is it something in the water in my neighborhood or city? While that's a possibility, I tend to notice the same tendency among people most everywhere I go.

At the same time, those few with smiles on their faces were, not coincidentally, also those who seemed to be happiest doing whatever it was they were doing, be it drawing my blood (I donate plasma on a semi-regular basis) or pumping their gas or whatever their task may be. I would also argue that these people aren't necessarily devoid of trials or stress in their lives, but in spite of those things - because we all have them - they choose to remain as positive as they can and to pass that feeling along to everyone they meet.

Let's face it: Happy people are more fun to be around. Because they are happy and they know it, not only do they clap their hands, but they also draw others to them because of that happiness. Their smiles are not feigned or forced and come from their very souls. A smile makes an unattractive person attractive and an attractive person downright foxy.

One of my favorite Old Testament verses is Psalm 118:24, which reads: "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it."

That's good advice. As someone else put it, "Any day above ground is a good day."