Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood

I have the extreme good fortune of being that guy who always has things work out for him. I have noticed this inexplicable phenomena for, and I bullshit you not, decades. Here are (only) a few examples:

• There was the time when I ran out of gas in my 71 Camaro on the Bay Bridge with a car full of my fraternity brothers. Not even sixty seconds after we coasted to a complete stop in the slow lane of the bridge did a CalTrans truck appear behind my car. The driver offered up a gallon of gas, I signed some paperwork, and we got the heck out of there.
• Then there was that time when not two months after I moved out of my parents’ house and into a house in San Francisco with some friends that I got fired from my job, the day before Thanksgiving. The week after New Year’s I was working again, and I stayed there for seven years until I quit to become a teacher.
• And of course, how can I forget our trip to Santa Barbara when Fehmeen told me that I could get whatever I wanted IF we happened to find a comic shop. Well, ten seconds after her big proclamation, we found one. Ka-ching.
• And finally, there was that day in September 2007 when I accompanied Fehmeen to the district office to help her fill out an application for disability insurance. Just because I was there, I filled one out, too. Five months later, Diagnosis: ALS.

Now you may think that I caught a tough break by coming down with a terminal illness but I still see things as going my way. Here are (only) a few examples: I’m not in any pain, I’m surrounded by family and friends, and not a day goes by that I don’t laugh and smile at least a hundred times. If that’s not having things work out for me, I don’t know what is.

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