There are those close calls and strange situations we call miraculous or extremely lucky. I came within six feet of getting struck by lightning three times in my life. The last one was so close I could see the lightning traveling along the cable behind the half-inch stained pine paneling. It glowed a bright orange through the wall as it reached into my TV, VCR and computer. It left me deaf in my right ear for about six hours. A tornado came north through the alley nearly a block from the very same house, a different storm that same year.
Driving, for everyone there are times when you realize it was a good idea after all, to stop when the light turned yellow. If you had continued through the yellow light another vehicle pulling out of a parking lot down the street would be up your grill.
But luck is different sometimes. For me there was the one Dodgeball game where I caught a ball in each hand and a third ball between the other two. That never happened again. There was the one time I bowled a perfect game. One time when I hit three home runs at a Softball game. Back in my teen years I spent summers playing cards with my sister and friends. It took me five years of playing Hearts during the summer before I finally won a game. That was back in the early 1990s. Back in 1989 I won a $20 wristwatch at a raffle. It was the only raffle I won, out of hundreds I entered.
The point is for me, no matter how hard or frequently I practiced, I was allowed only one win. Bowling, Softball, Darts, Miniature Golf, Billiards, Tennis etc. Those scores occurred on a twisted Bell Curve that spans for me not the particular event, but my entire life.
It gets worse.
I only had one broken bone in my hand, and it didn't even require a cast, just a splint. Wait, what's so bad about that, you ask? Well it's not enough to earn me sympathy points. I don't get any extraordinary diseases or illnesses that earn any kind of sympathy. I get illnesses like Gout and Psoriasis that are highly stigmatized but not contagious (They are both genetic preconditions). I can't walk very well and it throws a wrench into my exercise plans. I also lost my hair when I was twenty two years old and just going into the Amphibious Navy where women were very scarce. My fate as a life-long bachelor was sealed.
So my life has been in the center of mediocrity, with only flickers of exceptionality, and never deserving of exceptional sympathy. There can be no greater Hell than to be mediocre despite one's efforts.
There was one period of time during my teenage years, for about three weeks, where I was thin and fit and had skin clear of Acne. That was it.
