Skip to main content

Flair

A while back, a friend of mine went to Japan and brought back a good luck charm (omamori) for me as a souvenir. I'm not superstitious, but I figured it couldn't hurt. The actual omamori is about the size of a key, so it's not like it was going to take up tons of space. What's more, I figured I would need the protection the most when I was outside of my own home, so I stuck it on my key chain. The little bell on it meant that I had to sacrifice some stealth, but I figured if I really had to go all ninja on someone I wouldn't take my keys with me.

Because the omamori was on my key chain, I'd always remember it when I was driving. As a result, I came to think of it as my "good luck on the roads" charm. I've never gotten a speeding ticket, and I've never been in a collision with another car. Basically, any trouble I've ever had behind the wheel has been solely my fault; I'd say it's done its job well. And the longer the good luck has held up, the more superstitious I've became about it. I'm still not strict about it, and I have hopped in my car without it plenty of times. However, going from not really believing in it to thinking "man, too bad I left it at home" counts as becoming more superstitious.

Well, I got the omamori several years ago. The string on which it came started to fray, and it kept getting undone from my key chain. I eventually resorted to just sticking it in my pocket. It still did its thing, but I had to make a conscious effort to shove it in my pocket every time I went out. A couple of times, it fell out of my pocket, so I was a little worried that I might accidentally lose it one of these days.

This morning, as I was getting out of my car, it suddenly occurred to me: I can tie the thing to the rear-view mirror. I don't know why this has never occurred to me before. I suspect it's a practice more common amongst women than men, but that's more of a guess than anything else. The thing is supposed to protect me when I'm driving anyway, what better place than my car? Also, there's zero chance that I'll lose it or leave it at home that way. All in all, I couldn't really think of any reason not to do this, so I tied it up.

As soon as I did this, two more thoughts came to me:

  • My car has flair now
  • I am free to go all ninja if I want now. Watch out, world.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pink

Way back in high school, there was a male teacher that all the girls thought was attractive. It was an open secret that a bunch of them had crushes on him. In fact, the school newspaper even did an article about him that quoted some girl saying, "he's so cute, he even makes pink look good." Yes, he had worn a pink shirt to school one day, and it had apparently been a big hit. I was reminded of this story when my sister-in-law suggested that she would choose pink as the color for her wedding and bridal party. I don't think I've ever made a color look good before, but I remember thinking, "well, I know it's possible to not look stupid in pink as a straight guy, I guess I can try." And I think that's almost exactly what I told her. I also happened to own a gray suit, so I figured the combination would look all right. However, I was pretty much the only one willing to play along. My sister-in-law's brothers wanted absolutely no part of th...

Dreams

Normally, I don't eat very many sweets. I tend to eat pretty generous portions, but I generally prefer savory food over sweet. In fact, I usually prefer things half as sweet when possible. My preference doesn't have anything to do with health reasons, it's just one of those things that I've always liked better. That said, I do inevitably eat dessert, particularly if I'm out with other people. My stance towards dessert is roughly equivalent to those who are social drinkers . If other people want to munch on something for dessert, I'm not about to cross my arms and refuse. That'd be just a tad gauche. So, I do eat some dessert. I even have a few standby favorites that I'll usually order when presented with them (brownies, creme brulee, and apple pie). But left to my own devices, I'm not about to go hunting for dessert. Apparently, this means that the sugar can really mess with my system under the right circumstances. As I've discovered, ...

New York City Trip (Day 1)

After my crappy flight , I was now in Newark, New Jersey at 7AM on a Friday morning. I had done a little bit of reading up, so I knew which bus I needed to take and where I was going to get off. All in all, getting into the city was surprisingly easy. I suppose speaking the language does make things simpler. Through no real planning of mine (a theme of the trip, at least on my part), I picked one of the later bus stops at which to get off, Grand Central. I actually just figured that getting off at Grand Central would give me options, and heck, it's called Grand Central. That just screamed "decent place to disembark that might be close to some stuff" to me, so that's where I got off. However, it also meant that we drove down 42 nd St to get to my bus stop. That just happens to be a big street, and it gave me a glimpse of Times Square as we drove by. My bus stop choice had accidentally given me a rough layout of the city. Go me. I had about 6 hours to kill...