Sunday, July 6, 2008

Lucky Sugar Mice

What happened was, Chris Roberts bought a sugar mouse from Jack Reynolds ('The
Rock King'), bit its head off, dropped it in the Newmarket Road before he could
get started on the body, and it got run over by a car. And that afternoon
Cambridge United, who had hitherto been finding life difficult in the Second
Division (two wins all season, one home, one away), beat Orient 3-1, and a
ritual was born. Before each home game we all of us trooped into the sweet shop,
purchased our mice, walked outside, bit the head off as though we were removing
the pin from a grenade, and tossed the torsos under the wheels of oncoming cars;
Jack Reynolds would stand in the doorway watching us, shaking his head
sorrowfully. United, thus protected, remained unbeaten at the Abbey for months.

NickHornsby, FeverPitch, pp.109-110.

The opening of the best chapter I've read about luck all year, in a book I was not reading with thoughts to luck, and in it sweet rodents that are lucky. Reading this passage felt like a not-very subtle sign from God.
Alas, even the most obvious signs can have cryptic
meanings and I have yet to properly interpret God's lucky rodent message.

1 comment:

Irene said...

That does seem a cryptic message indeed. The passage itself seems to suggest that luck a) requires sacrifice and b) works in bizarre and apparently arbitrary ways.

The lucky discovery of such an interesting passage - surely, it is a sign that your interest in the subject is in itself lucky!