Lucky Birthday

[memories evoked by the Sunday Scribblings prompt "I get that sinking feeling..."]

Someone, I don't remember who, told me that my 15th birthday would be lucky because it fell on the 15th day of the month. I do recall that I wanted to go to the zoo for my birthday. Mom and Daddy and my younger brother and I, we went to the city that day, 70 miles away. Mom drove, as always.

I think I had a pretty good time, but it did rain, and it was a little foggy - definitely unusual for the summer. I don't remember many details from that part of the trip, but I get vague flashes of a rhinoceros, and a building where they were growing mushrooms, but I may be confusing that with something else. I know lunch was a hot dog standing under the eaves of a building because all the seats were out in the rain.

The original plan was to leave the zoo and return home. Note I said "original."

Daddy was going to attend some kind of upcoming meeting in a town about 10 miles outside the city and didn't know how to get there. Mom was very familiar with that area since it had some very large shopping malls, something new to the area back then. So Mom took us on a detour to point out to Daddy how to get where he needed.

I was a little bummed out from the weather, and tired from walking around, and I was fifteen (and probably just generally moody). I don't know if I got "that sinking feeling" but perhaps I should have.

You see, as Mom was driving and pointing something out to Daddy, she turned a little sooner than she had intended and ran the car into the concrete median. Then the car didn't sound right and we pulled over into the nearest parking lot (tons of those around, being in mall-land at the end of a day). We later found out that the impact had pushed the fan back into the radiator, causing the latter to crack. Not good.

The four of us were still 60 miles from home. This was in the days before cell phones, so we located a pay phone. One call to someone to tow the car to the dealer my mom used in the city. Then a couple of calls to folks who lived in our hometown to see if anyone was able to come collect our family of four to take us home. We finally did track down one of my dad's employees, but they weren't able to leave right away (don't remember why). We set a time and a place to meet.

By then the car had been picked up by the tow truck and we headed off on foot in search of dinner. Since the area was geared to keeping people happy through retail, we had our pick of national chain restaurants and we picked one of the nicer ones (a real treat) and had dinner "out." Somehow the charm was a little lost on me, being in a bad mood and all. I guess I was feeling sorry for myself.

After dinner our "ride" picked us up. The employee had her husband with her. The two of them picked up the four of us and boy! was that car full on the way back home. I was probably still somewhat grumpy, but as long as no one tried to talk to me, I was probably just silent and well, almost pleasant-enough.

I knew it was nice that my family could spend my birthday with me, and that we could take a trip, and that the weather wasn't a TOTAL washout, and no one got hurt in the accident and we didn't go hungry and we had friends who would spend two hours out of their day off to do us a favor. I KNEW that. But I still considered the day, on the balance, to be awful. It still felt that all that luck of my 15th birthday on the 15th of the month - all that luck was bad luck.

I think I'm somewhat better at rolling with the punches now. But if anyone tells me a day is going to be lucky, I am extra careful.