Somewhere along the way, we lost something. Maybe it wasn't something critical. It may not have even been important. Hell it might have been a good thing that we lost it, really, but just the same I'd like to go on record as saying, I feel the loss. Think about this for a minute - in earlier times we had omens. You know, omens, portents of misfortune, eerie forewarnings of calamities on the brew. Omens. I miss them. In case you're wondering how I got onto this topic, I have to admit that some misfortune befell me just lately (although it was kind of a self-inflicted misfortune, truth be know) and I have found myself forced to sit around twiddling my thumbs and reading while a few key muscles recover from some unfortunate pulling/tearing type injuries. It's very frustrating - trust me. Anyway, whenever I'm forced to sit still for any length of time, my mind begins to wander and so I found myself thinking about how much cooler life would be if we still had people skulking about, uttering grim warnings and ominous portents. In earlier times they had all sorts of cool omens to go around worrying about. If you lived in costal regions you were sure to have been warned that to see the Flying Dutchman was a sign of doom. If you lived in ancient Rome you knew all too well that the sound of an owl hooting bespoke death. If you grew up in earlier times in Europe, you knew that if someone dropped an umbrella in your house, someone would die there within the month. Ahh, the possibilities for screwing with your friends were endless! I wonder how many people, upon entering a house with an umbrella in hand, immediately became the recipients of a savage, door-clearing tackle? I smile just thinking about it. I may have to try that now that I've found an excuse for it. Please God, let it rain soon.
So I decided that my life would be a little more interesting if I had a few bad omens to be wary of - a few things that I would need to make efforts to avoid in my daily life in order to circumvent disaster. Something unproductive to keep my mind occupied, and an excuse to behave strangely in public. So I began picking my brain for the spectral warnings that had doubtless preceded many a bad time in the past, searching for the previously missed harbingers of tragedy that would become handy navigation points for me in the future. In all honesty, I've had more than one thing go catastrophically wrong before, so it wasn't really very hard to come up with some good, evil-portent calibre, signs of warning. So here they are, listed for your easy edification; concisely packaged so that you can effortlessly integrate them into your own personal set of oddball superstitions and dysfunctional worries. A small handful of bad omens for the 2000's. Enjoy! Ominous Omen #1: A Kelly Hrudey Sighting - That's right, he looks awfully cheerful and good natured on TV, but if you should have the misfortune to cross the path of this former Los Angeles Kings goaltender, you will be damned to the fires of hell. Well, no, that's not completely accurate. What will actually happen is that your next rental car will be awful - just awful. You see, I'm sitting in the airport, waiting for a flight to Boston when I look up and there's former NHL goalie and Hockey Night in Canada broadcast personality, Kelly Hrudey. He's about five feet away from me, talking on his cellphone while lining up to board a flight to Chicago. I make a mental note to mention this little brush with fame to some of my more hockey-centric friends, and then proceed to forget about it. Oh, if only I'd known. |
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