The Trinity of Misfortune

My mother has always told me that misfortunes come in threes. It’s a concept no doubt familiar to those of other Asian backgrounds, who see 3 an unlucky number. In Japan, 4 is the unlucky number because it is synonymous with the word "death" (shi), but the bad things always come in threes bit is still superstitious wisdom.

It is of course my recent run of “bad” luck that makes me ponder this trinity. While I suppose there’s no hard and fast rule as to how quickly in sequence such misfortunes must come—I’m sure the lack of hard time limit serves as evidence for those true believers, who can find their trinities in ill events set years apart—I can nevertheless consider the events which have befallen me in the last few weeks.

Even as I write this, I am sitting in a walk-in clinic, only three weeks since I was last here (of course, this will actually be published much later when I have access to the internet). Three weeks ago, I was treated here for a mild asthma attack, for which I was prescribed hideously expensive but fantastically effective medication.

That’s misfortune number one.

Of course, the second of these misfortunes was the violent collision between my head and a metal shelf, the specifics of which you can review in the post below. The removal of the 6 staples which sutured the wound is what brings me to the doctor’s office today.

Metal shelf 1, my head 0: that’s misfortune number two.

I have managed to avoid being somehow physically injured in the last week, and while I consider myself more of a man of science rather than mysticism, there is still some ingrained part of me that is on the lookout for potential misfortune number threes. To celebrate my last day at work, my coworkers and I will be going for drinks. In the grand scheme of things, it would really, really, suck if I was hit by a car coming home drunk from the party that was supposed to signal the end of my time at Canadian Tire for things bigger and better.

Cautionary advice or mystic paranoia? I'm going to hedge my bets and not tempt the trinity of misfortune.