Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Good Fortune

I’m not sure about the rest of the world, but in Serbia it is considered good luck if a bird shits on you. Such an omen of luck just happened to me as I was coming back from my lunch break. It wasn’t even under a tree, but in the middle of the street. A bird in flight simply dropped its lunch on my shoulder. I didn’t feel particularly lucky. It’s just annoying, if anything.
Personally, I am more inclined to view shit raining from above as a sign of misfortune, especially in this age of bird flu, but then, who am I to argue with superstition.
I wonder, though, what this is based on. Is it supposed to represent some sort of karmic equilibrium - that something good will now happen to you as compensation for being shat upon from the heavens? Perhaps it’s about probability? The chance of a piece of bird feces finding you of all people as it falls, randomly dropped by an indifferent bird and shifted by winds might indicate that you are somehow special? Most likely it is an idea conceived by people to comfort themselves after their favorite shirt was ruined by pigeon poop.
Maybe I am lucky. Good fortune didn’t leave a stain.

Could this be the luckiest town on Earth? taken in Venice, Nov 2005

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