Daily Record Columnist
San Marcos — I get picked at random. I know it's random because coincidence can't explain everything.
I'm randomly picked by produce in the grocery store. “Customer no. 1,000 just walked in the door and she's headed for our section. As soon as she touches one of us, let's all roll off onto the floor.”
It is never the onions or lettuce. That isn't messy enough. It's always the tomatoes or over-ripened cantaloupe-things that splash all over the floor. The bigger the mess they can make, the more likely it is to be my number that is chosen.
Tomatoes have it in for me. Once I got picked at random by a tomato worm. There were seven people in that garden, and that worm was on the very tomato plant I stuck my hand in. I still have nightmares about that big green worm crawling up my arm.
Not so very long ago a cactus plant randomly fell on my foot and before it was all over I nearly lost my only good feature, a perfectly good toe. Really! One of the little needles mysteriously worked itself through my shoe and made its way underneath my toenail.
I'm always the last one in a long line of cars approaching the most complicated detour and I can't even remember how many times my car has been hit in the rear end when I was stopped dead still, minding my own business, at a stop light.
Actually though, there are a few winning lists for some nice prizes on which my name mysteriously appears. Specifically, random winners of a free vacation that doesn't cost a thing except the airline ticket, hotel room, entertainment, food, air to breath and, last but not least, the meager sales tax of ONLY $1,327.19. Everything else is the free part. And if I win another $200 coupon towards the purchase of a $3,000 sewing machine, I'm going to open up my own sewing machine store.
Last week I was the lucky winner of the Nigerian lottery. They informed me via e-mail but refused to send me a check. They preferred to deposit it in my checking account. I lost that one pretty quick.
This kind of luck started when I was born. I was the only kid out of five with freckles and droopy eyes. That's not all. I also got the smallest buxom, the driest hair, skinniest legs and biggest knees. My two sister's got most of the good genes before I got there and my brothers got the rest-sexy eyes and full lips, not to mention long curly eyelashes. I got the leftovers. You know what leftovers are, don't you? Bones and guts. Now, even those are failing me. My veins are about to push through the skin on my legs and all my guts are balled up into one lard lump just below my waist.
I shouldn't complain. There are times when I am completely incapable of being picked at random, such as those advertisements the where a local dealership is giving away a new car. My key never starts the car. If I get anything at all, it is usually the little key chain that advertises the dealership.
When the numbers get picked for the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes, the legal lotteries, or even something as minor as bingo, my number never comes up. At every drawing, inevitable fate proclaims, “Oh, wait! Wasn't she the one who got the cactus needle?”
