Feeling Lucky?

Hope: Mom, do you believe in luck?

Pandora: (sips her beverage and thinks for a minute) Sometimes... sometimes I believe in luck.

Hope: What do you mean, sometimes?  How can you sometimes believe in luck?  I thought you either believed in luck or you didn't.

Pandora: I don't know how to explain it, really.  I've been around people who don't believe in luck at all because everything is "fate" or "destiny" to them.  And then I've been around people that think too much depends on luck, where everything is chance and superstition.  But... there are just sometimes that you can't deny it -- you were lucky.  Against all odds, even when everything else founded in fact and reason and logic stated that there was no possible way this would happen, it suddenly happens, for good or for ill, and... I call that luck.

Hope: Hm... I guess I never thought of it that way.

Pandora: Like gambling -- the average gambler in the casino is banking on a stroke of good luck.  Where they make their mistake is that they go in believing they're going to win.  What they need to do is go in and say, "I'm willing to lose $20," and when they sit down at the machine, knowing they're going to lose because the odds are never in their favor, and within the first two minutes they suddenly win $700, they need to consider that the stroke of good luck, cash out, and walk away.

Hope: I guess that could be a moment of good luck.  (she stares through Pandora, deep in thought, still not convinced)

Pandora: Okay, how about this one?  You walk onto the car lot and you buy a brand new car.  Everything about buying a brand new, never been driven, vehicle should mean you've got something that is far from failing you and you're going to have several years of driving a reliable car.  Suddenly, $30,000 later and within the first ten minutes of driving it off the lot, the thing breaks down in a puff of smoke and leaves you more frustrated than you were with the junk heap you just traded in.  That's bad luck right there.

Hope: (still stares at Pandora as if she's not entirely convinced)

Pandora: (takes her last sip of beverage and confidently puts the glass down on the table)  Okay, ...my love life.

Hope: (leans back in her chair) Well... I wouldn't call that bad luck.

Pandora: (raises an eyebrow)

Hope: It's not bad luck, Mom, it's... ... well ... it's ...

Pandora: Really... all I have to say to you on that one is: six drawers of socks, kiddo.  ...six drawers of socks and glad lock containers.

Hope: Hahahahahahahaha!  Okay, yeah, you're right.  That was some serious bad luck right there.

Pandora: Thank you.