Mr. Bad Decision

Sheltonious Bumblethwart

Just got off the phone with the recalcitrant morlock, Shelton, my baby brother. He's such a sweetie, but he has the most amazingly dreadful luck, in everything. This call recounted his latest adventures on the amorous field, and yes, it was another litany of unlikely disasters.

Ladies, Sheltonious is not a dingbat. He is a sexy mf, mighty fine on the keys, mighty fine on the eyes. But, knowing him too well, gotta say that it's true. He's the guy who makes Bad Decisions... The Official Bad Decision guy, taking it on the chin for the rest of us.

The latest crisis was when he lost his mail keys and wasn't sure where. And, I told him to just call the super and get a copy made. But, he couldn't do that because without the mail keys, he couldn't get his cheque, so couldn't get paid, so didn't have enough money to pay the super for a new mail key. And if he broke the mailbox he'd have to pay the post office to get it fixed, and that would cost slightly more than a new mail key. Then he broke the mailbox, but the cheque wasn't inside. So the super fixed the mailbox, charged him for the repair, and he still didn't have the key, or the cheque.

Or, when his parents were silly enough to live in a house where the front door and apartment door were automatic locks. Sometimes he'd leave his apartment without his keys and get stuck.... for the whole day... 9am till 5pm. I'd wait for him, then knock on the door, and there he would be, stuck in between the two doors.

And, what about that time when he really wanted to wear his praying mantis shirt... but then it got too cold and he had to borrow a brown velour sweater off a friend. After which, he tucked the shirt into his pants because a hip length wine shirt under a brown velour sweater is kind of nasty. But he was wearing pleated pale tapered jeans, that he was covering with his untucked shirt. Finally, thinking the shirt is the problem, he takes the shirt off, and is now in a brown V-neck velour sweater, pleated pale jeans, and chest hair coming sparsely off the top. Champion of sartorial faux pas extreme sport.

Whenever he recounts these adventures, he puts me in stitches. It's our bond... I always laugh at his misfortunes and the more I guffaw, the more he recounts the bad news, the more I laugh*... Bad News Bear Laughs. Tonight, he was his typical self.

-Sam, my life is one serious joke.
-Ohhh, I dunno Shelton... it's not so bad.
-No I mean, I think my life is really really funny... I kind end up laughing at it, even if I have bad luck. But it is a serious joke.
-Well.. that's a funny conundrum. Like, sometimes you need something kind of bad to happen in order to laugh at it. So bad luck is inately funny. Conversely, if you had luck enough to have a pretty swell life, chances are you'd really have nothing to laugh about.
-Awww, I guess you're right... I really should be happy to have such bad luck.

This is just a short excerpt of a long conversation, that kept circling round the idea of luck. This brings me to a very lovely quote sent to me from Outlaw from his self-help book on luck:

2. Lucky people make good decisions without knowing why. They just seem to know when a business decision is sound or someone shouldn't be trusted. Unlucky people's decisions tend to result in failure and despair.

This is from a book that is presumably bought by people with bad luck. However, the gist of the quotes seem to say that in fact, luck is unchangeable. Therefore, whoever buys the book is in active affirmation of the second rule. I already imagine Shelton buying this book going, "hey, this could really change my life..." and then later "awww man, I got had! Again!"

Still...still... Shelton has the darling soul, the untouchable stuff, that makes him a miracle on the keyboard... a miracle of life and cosmic bad luck forces. One day someone is going sit up and notice and he'll get snatched up by some sugar momma. But, I don't know if he really needs any more good luck to be honest... he's practically perfect as he is... just not of this world.

*He did once push me off a rock into the lake when I laughed too hard. But, I kind of deserved that one.