Every year around August eleventh there is a meteor shower, so for a couple of nights a person has seemingly unlimited opportunities to make a wish on a "shooting star." Being a wishful person myself I awaited the prospect this year with anxious anticipation. This year especially I had need, regardless of the effectiveness of this method, I knew it would be comfort enough just to indulge in the childlike hope of it. Such a week it has been that I had nearly forgotten about it until Thursday night as I stepped outside to enjoy the semi-new back deck. I moved to the front porch as that faced the direction the meteor shower was predicted to be. I sat for quite a time before seeing a single meteor, so long in fact I started to believe that perhaps the sky was simply too polluted for me to see it from my front yard. After the first meteor I ran into the house to tell my mother, no doubt missing several other meteors in the process. Having returned to the porch still filled with that odd indescribable rush this small wonder had given me, I found myself silently willing the sky to show me another. How odd to think looking back, but there I was actually bargaining with the sky--or perhaps God. Well, regardless, I suppose it worked, for mere moments after I asked I was granted another wish. With the joy of this new-found success, I became more persuasive. Though I had promised I would heed my mother's urging and retire, I could not help myself, after all, even genies give you three wishes why should I now be limited to just two? It could hardly be considered fair--at least for the sake of my argument. I was given four wishes that night--perhaps the surplus to make up for the prior seeming injustice. Last night I was given just one more while I attended the Jack Johnson concert... perhaps Friday the thirteenth is not so unkind after all.
