Adventures in Probability

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Probability, dusty nomads, is a carnivore. It lopes silently through the forests of our small world, unnoticed and largely forgotten until the moment it leaps, eyes slitted, fangs glistening, into our field of vision. By then, of course, it's much too late, and once the mauling is over we are startlingly quick to forget that that beast is still roaming the woods. We forget, we let our defences down, and we go back to assuming that we are good, capable, likeable people and everything is going to be just fine for us. Human nature is kind of depressing sometimes.

Shocking contrast has a way of making you notice things.

You see, my life is pretty good - lots of things work out well for me. Hell, I live in a province where the Premier (the Canadian equivalent of a State Governor for those of you south of the border) can storm into a homeless shelter in the middle of the night, hurl coins at people while screaming at everyone to get jobs, rage back out into the darkness, and then successfully defuse the entire incident the next day by telling the media, "Well, I'd been drinking." When life is this easy, you have to expect the occasional stretch of bad road.

What really makes one of these little spells stand out, however, what really helps to get my guard down, is when things start out really well, before plummeting into an abyss of hurt. Shocking contrast has a way of making you notice things.

So here's how it starts. I unexpectedly find myself getting a date with a girl that I liked but, for various reasons, never expected to be going out with. It's a simple get together for coffee, and she turns out to be fun, intelligent and interesting. We have a good time and I go home feeling happy and bulletproof. It's right about here that the train jumps the rails and my life goes all earth-sky-earth-sky.

I'm back at home, buoyantly recounting fascinating tales of my day to Flip, while eating pizza and pacing the room in an arm-waving frenzy, when the first, thin-wailing shriek of incoming mortar shells reaches my ears. I bite into a slice of pizza and suddenly detect the only distantly remembered, but stunningly clear sensation of a tooth tearing loose.

"Jesus Christ!" My voice streaks across a range of octaves that would make an opera singer blush, as I announce my surprised dismay to the limited portion of the world that is in my immediate presence.

"What's your problem?" Flip casts a brief flicker of a glance in my direction then resumes watching something on TV that seems to involve women in bikinis.

"My tooth! Jesus, my tooth is falling out!" I've got a large portion of one hand in my mouth now, actively wiggling one of my front teeth around. I'm upset.

Flip looks surprised. "How do you make a tooth fall out?"

I'm too upset to explain that the tooth in question has actually been dead for many years now, the victim of some nameless facial trauma, and that that may be related to my current predicament. Instead I fly up and down the length of the living room in a semi-incoherent rage, occasionally interrupted by particularly good footage on Flip's bikini program. They say that when you're hurt, it's good to let it out. I let it out. All of it. I set the hounds loose on the estate and spray the passers-by in bar-b-que sauce. None of it makes me feel any better.

The next morning I race off for an emergency dental appointment, hoping for an immediate and definitive fix. It turns out that my dentist is out of town, but his replacement will take a look.

"Whoa, what did you do to this?" She seems a little surprised.