Co-Incidences?

Have you seen the footage? That New Zealand uni student wandering around the devastation that was once Sendai in Japan looking for his girlfriend? I'm not the only one, it seems, who had previously seen him doing vigil in the park in downtown Christchurch for his parents.  Some news reporters recognised him as well, and I was very pleased to hear him say that his parents were found alive ... but what the heck is he now doing in Sendai?

The HK newspapers picked up on the story, talking about "unlucky" people, but two earthquakes and a tsunami in a fortnight?  That is so "unlucky" as to make you wonder what the heck is going on?

However, I'm more than willing to accept this as a hideous co-incidence.  Did you read that the father of the baby born in the refuge centre in Cairns, in North Queensland, during the height of Cyclone Yasi was named Staum because he himself was born in the refuge centre in Darwin at the height of Cyclone Tracey?

Odd, la?

However, if Staum's father and grandfather had also been born at the height of cyclones, that would be another thing altogether!  That would definitely make you pause!

I have known people who have lived such a life that goes so far beyond co-incidences that they very definitely make you stop and say, like Hamlet "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dream't of in your philosophy!"

I grew up around jinxed people.  Julie A.'s grandfather walked away unscathed from 19 aircrashes, and our neighbour Mrs Hawley had never once traveled by ship where she didn't end up in a lifeboat, and I have to tell you they were among my most beloved adults when I was growing up - practically mythical beings in my eyes - because I thought they were the luckiest people who had ever lived, and also because they had the BEST stories.

There was no stopping me! Whenever I heard Julie's Grampa was in town, immediately I was over to their house to hear the latest, and whenever Mrs Hawley went anywhere by ship, I could hardly wait for her latest stories and I'd count down the days on a calender, like she was Christmas or something, and, on the day of her return, I'd linger on the veranda waiting with bated breath, and the instant I heard her car coming down the road I'd start to run ... only my mother would grab my arm and order me to at least give her an hour to settle in before I went over to breathlessly ask my question "How long were you in the lifeboat this time?"

She never disappointed.

No, wait, she did!  There was one trip where she was only in the lifeboat for three hours - because the sprinkler systems went off, spraying scalding hot water all through the ship and they off-loaded everyone while they fixed it - and because it was so ... ordinary ... that disappointed me.  More normally her ship would hit old WWII mines or a reef or the engine room would explode or something else life-threatening and dramatic and they'd be such amazing stories I couldn't wait for the next one.

"You'll have to take another trip soon, Mrs Hawley!" I'd say when the latest story was done.  "I think you'd be better off taking planes." my hideously sensible mother would tell her!  

Grrrrrrr!

But for plane crashes there was always Julie's Grampa! He was a lovely rolypoly rollicking fellow with the most delicious Canadian accent and I'd shudder with delight every time he said those words "Ah jinx arrowplanes!" and he said them often.  And his stories would always start with him boarding 'arrowplanes' and shouting from the doorway "Ah jinx arrowplanes! I'm wahning y'all! Ah jinx arrowplanes. Ah suhgest y'all get off right now because y'all gonna die." and whenever the 'arrowplane' began to screw up, which it invariably did, he'd always shout "Ah wahned y'all. I wahned ya! I told y'all I jinx arroplanes. Ah'm wahking away from this, but y'all gonna die!"

And apparently, although I didn't hear the story from him, Air Pacific hostesses, when they'd see his name on the passenger list, would have serious discussions about who was going to slap him first.

I know it's inexplicable but it always happened. He was never on a flight where stuff didn't go wrong, and I know for a fact that Air Pacific did major investigations on the stuff-ups that happened on those flights and could never find a rational explanation for any one of them.  In fact, one report said, at the end of an exhaustive report, "The only explanation we can come up with is that Mr M. has a jinx."

And I know for a fact that Air Pacific suggested that Grampa in future travel to Fiji by ship!

Hey, wouldn't it be a laugh if he took a ship with Mrs Hawley on it!

Oh, and because he'd crashed all over the world, he had the BEST stories about how people in different countries behave during and after a plane crash. Even while listening to him, we knew we were privileged because they were definitely a set of stories we'll probably never hear from anyone else, EVER!, so it was a bonus that he was also a hilarious storyteller who'd relate all in a way that made it seem like a classic comedy routine, so the nano-second he was finished it was all "Can you tell that one again?"

It's a pity that all I can recall from this amazing recounting is that North Americans scream - without the swearing - as the plane plunges to earth "I'm suing you for this!" Oh, and the very best plane crash refrain was  "You're making me miss my connecting flight from Chicago!"

So I know there are people who are like this, people who either are very, very "unlucky" or who indeed, like Douglas Adam's fictional "Rain God" in "So Long and Thanks for All The Fish!", carry a jinx. 

Nonetheless, I do hope that the New Zealand uni student finds his girlfriend! AND that I never ever see him on the news again.