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What's Your Jinx/What's Your Luck?

Ulalume

Ulalume

tart of darkness
Joined
Jan 3, 2009
Messages
3,340
Location
Not Texas
We all must have them, these areas where our fortune is uncannily good or unaccountably bad, for no reason we can see.

My own jinx is any kind of electronic banking card. No sooner have I swiped it through the reader than the system goes whackadoo. It doesn't matter what card or from what bank. It happens so often that I usually just pay cash to save everyone the trouble. Yesterday, alas, I had to use the card at the gas station. They had to call the manager in to sort out the resulting crash. The staff were looking at the machine in bewilderment, saying they've never seen it do that before. I said, yeah, that would be my jinx again. :oops:

My luck, on the other hand, has to do with clothes. They never wear out, or if they do, it's rarely. I have 15 year old socks that haven't even started to fray. If there's a sale, the last item left will be my size. Or people just give me their designer cast-offs. I figure the goddess of clothes must have blessed me at birth.

My favorite uncanny clothing story is this:

Back in the Spring of 2009 or thereabouts, the song Venus In Furs by Velvet Underground was stuck in my head. You know, "Shiny, shiny...shiny boots of leather..."

Soon our neighbor from down the street came to the door. She was moving back to California, she said, and was giving away anything that wouldn't fit in her car. So did I want this fur coat and patent leather boots? :eek:

The fur wan't ermine and I don't wear fur anyway, but I kept it because it was such an incredible coincidence. That, or Lou Reed had more mystical power than he let on. :p

So, my question for you, FTMB, is what's your jinx and what's your luck?
 
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Ulalume said:
My own jinx is any kind of electronic banking card. No sooner have I swiped it through the reader than the system goes whackadoo. It doesn't matter what card or from what bank. It happens so often that I usually just pay cash to save everyone the trouble. Yesterday, alas, I had to use the card at the gas station. They had to call the manager in to sort out the resulting crash. The staff were looking at the machine in bewilderment, saying they've never seen it do that before. I said, yeah, that would be my jinx again. :oops:
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Possibly being most mundane, but are you one who generates a lot of static? It's not unheard of - are you unusually dry-skinned for example?
 
You make your own luck. When things are bad you can make them better. Most of it is in your own hands.
Bad things happen randomly. It's not personal. What are you, a god? Nope, you're a tiny pimple on the arse of the universe, like everyone else.
 
Loquaciousness said:
Photocopiers.... I am really good at breaking them, usually just about 10 minutes before I need something copied really urgently.
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You are clearly not photocopying your head (with a towel draped over the act to cut out external light) or arse often enough LQ .. photocopiers are people to and need a smile !
 
It has happened so many times that my family remark upon it: if there's one particular flavour/recipe/sauce/drink that I really like that isn't the most popular, it will soon be discontinued.

My approval is the kiss of death.

On the other side of the ledger, my whole life is a story of good fortune - a couple of big bad events, but in general life/God/fate has smiled upon me so far.
 
Yithian said:
It has happened so many times that my family remark upon it: if there's one particular flavour/recipe/sauce/drink that I really like that isn't the most popular, it will soon be discontinued.

My approval is the kiss of death.
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Unfortunately, I share the same experience.
 
Spudrick68 said:
I don't win a competition or raffle ever
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I think I won a prize in a raffle only once. It was at a dinner-dance and mine was third or fourth prize: a bottle of decent wine! I was delighted.

I got up to dance - just about as rare an event; when I returned to the table, the bottle was gone! :cry:
 
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I have won two or three raffles, using an old boat sail number as my 'Lucky Number'. Once in Essex I had a girl-friend staying with me, and on the day she was due to leave we visited a nearby pub, and they had a raffle going. I was able to get my 'Lucky Number', but we had to leave before the draw to pick up her stuff at my place. While we were there the phone rang - it was the pub to say I'd won a prize! Her face was a picture!

So I won a bottle, but I didn't keep the gf for long... :(
 
oldrover said:
At my Christmas fete in my last year in Primary school, my parents won first second, third and forth prize in the raffle. They slunk out after the second or third win.
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My father did a similar thing at two raffles, winning three prizes on two occasions and one of them was at the school I was at. I, on the other hand, have never won anything on any raffle, ever.
 
Coal said:
My father did a similar thing at two raffles, winning three prizes on two occasions and one of them was at the school I was at. I, on the other hand, have never won anything on any raffle, ever.
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Come to think of it neither have I, except for a bottle of nail lotion in a lottery I didn't enter and had no idea about until my manager presented it to me and told me he didn't know what the fuck I was going to do with it.
 
My luck and possibly jinx are the same thing.. I've repeatedly noticed my own financial equilibrium. I never get richer nor poorer. More specifically I've found many times that if I have an unexpected expense I'll have a windfall that precisely covers it...but by the same token if the windfall comes first, an expense to snatch it away will follow.

I'm not saying that's an absolute which I'd rely on, but its happened often enough to be notable. My "favourite" was when I won £150 (it might have been premium bonds, I can't recall) and then, that very day, accidentally cut the telephone wire outside and had to pay exactly the same sum to have it repaired.
 
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