Of Bad Luck, Good Luck

I have always wondered how vast our earth is. A quick search on Google tells me that it's approximately 510,072,000 km². Boy, is that huge.

Imagine my surprise a couple of fine morning ago when I was just so unsuspecting, all smiling, riding on an ojek*, a little birdie decided to drop its fecal matter right into my freshly ironed shirt.

We were probably traveling around 20 km/hours and then something squishy splashing into my chest. For that to happen the velocity of the bird and the trajectory of its flight must have been perfectly arranged for the excretory product to drop right into its doomed target.

I have to take a quick detour to change into new set of clothes.

I mean, for pete sake, this bird could have aimed at something else, the tukeng ojek's** helmet perhaps, or the large area of garbage dump around us. But no, it has to land on top of my good self.

Although my friends told me that based on local superstitions it's supposedly a sign of good luck, I spent the whole day feeling victimized.

Well I guess it could have been worse, landed on my face or hair, which means I have to take another shower and risk being late to the office.

Another good thing is, it prompt me to search how big our earth is and learning a thing or two about bird feces along with their synonyms. Although for once I shivered at the thought of bird flue that could come from it. Now if that were to be happened, tough luck indeed.

It's true that behind most silver lining there's a dark cloud.

Note:

• * Ojek is a motorcycle taxi used in Indonesia for short distance travel
• ** Tukang Ojek is the driver of an Ojek