L is for Luck

Do you believe in luck?

I'm not sure. Maybe we make our own luck? In the writing world, I often hear writers say that the harder you work the more luck you create. I kinda agree with that statement as when you work hard you invariably create more chances for success or "luck" to come your way. If you sit still and wait for it, rarely does it come your way.

However, then there's just plain spooky luck or, in my case, bad luck which isn't attached to any work ethic.

For example, this true recent story of something that happened to me...

I had finished an evening shift before Christmas and left for home in my car. It was very dark and the visibility was getting poorer due to a fog descending over the countryside. About half my journey is on a fast 60mph road and about half is cross-country. So I'm driving along the 60mph zone at a relatively slow pace due to the descending fog when suddenly cars coming in the opposite direction start flashing me. I am confused for a moment or two until I realise that something is wrong my lights. I play around with various lights switching them on and off and I come to the realisation that, since the previous night when I drove home, not one but both my headlights have blown - probably within a few minutes of each other.

How unlucky can you be? I have to drive home late on a dark winter's night in a heavy fog with only my sidelights and fog lights working....

At this point, I have to toss up whether it's safer to turn off earlier onto the country lanes where it is always foggier due to pits and falls of the countryside or risk carrying on my journey on the fast road which has a lot more traffic. I decide there's a greater risk of an accident on the fast road which is very narrow and where some jerks will travel the full 60mph even in poor visibility.

So I leave the main road as I reckon I have a better chance of getting home safely.

The fog though on the country roads is much worse than I expected and I soon begin to curse that I did not stay on the fast road where at least I might have been able to follow the rear lights of the car in front. As I crawl along the fog gets thicker and the visibility poorer until I am leaning forward in my seat straining to see the curves of the country roads ahead. I am probably driving at about 15 miles an hour. 

Then, a very short distance ahead, I notice an even thicker patch of fog on my side of the road. I can't see through it at all.  Is there something there I ask myself? A ghost perhaps? 

I decide to slow down to almost a standstill and as I get closer I see...

a white cow.

I am gobsmacked. I've seen a lot of cows in my life. But you don't see many almost entirely white cows. And what, statistically, are the chances of me coming across a white cow, in a dense fog, very late at night, on the same night that my both my headlights have blown?

Hmm.

Okay, son, let's stand here a little longer while the fog comes down. Then we'll make a
a break for it. Follow my ass to the main road and then we'll leg it to freedom. Watch out for any cars though, I heard there's some crazy bitch who drives like maniac some nights. Apparently, Ferdie Fox nearly bought it the other night when she did a wheel spin on Nutter's Bend.

So anyway, I slowed down to almost a complete standstill and drove around the cow as it trundled down the road. And a long while later I got home safely.

It's a spooky story, isn't it? There a lot of bad luck in that story but - on the other hand maybe it was good luck I got home alive on what was a pretty treacherous journey.

Hmm. I'm thinking now maybe it wasn't an ordinary cow. Maybe it was a ghostly guardian cow saving me from some other hazard.

Who knows? Luck, chance, fate. They're all strange phenomena. Do you believe in them?