Better Late Than Early.

I live alone, but I have this lucky rock. I hold it in my hand before I leave home to go to work, or even to the grocery store or the library. After I have rolled it over and over in my right hand a good number of times, I put it in my pocket, just in case I might need it again along the way to wherever I am going.  It entered and rescued my life when I was walking along a river bank the week that my wife left me. It stood out in the sand.

 I do not feel that I am generally a superstitious person, but my lucky rock gives me an emotional comfort and a feeling of confidence whenever I am in need of them. It sets my mind at ease regarding what will or will not happen to me when I leave my home and go into the big and challenging world out there. It helps me because I am by my emotional nature a worrier. I can imagine with some creativity what might or might not happen to me, and it is rarely good.

Today I am going to a meeting in which there are people who are very critical of the generators that I have designed for my company. I heard from one of my associates that they are going to try to convince the boss that they can design generators far better than I can, make much stronger generators. I could lose my job if they are successful in their sales pitch.

So I am now holding onto my lucky rock, so I will have the confidence that I need to have to talk their plans down and mine up.

The boss and I will be attending this meeting in the office that my critics call their base.   They will be demonstrating their latest innovation.  My plan is to show how my most recent design is better than anything that they can design for us. I am particularly proud of what I have put together recently.  I believe that it will revolutionize the AI of generators so that even the oldest workers will be comfortable handling it.  I can say that my generator is articulate in a way that is much better at communicating to workers than the technology that this other company is producing where the computer runs the whole show.

Earlier this morning I received a phone call heard from one of my colleagues that I trust the most that my competitors had last night entertained with alcohol and charm the boss the night before. I really do not like the sounds of that. I hold my lucky rock longer than usual to help me regain my confidence in this tense situation.

Then I prepare myself for the challenge by dressing more formally than I usually do. The boss strongly suggested that I do so.  I have my formal pants, fancy jacket, best white shirt, and a tie (which takes me a while to put on, as when I was a lad even a teenager my mom or dad would do that for me). I wish they were here now to speed up the process and make it hang from my neck more neatly than it does now. 

Realizing that my re-clothing exercise has edged me towards being late, I speed out the door and then sprint to my car in the driveway. I drive as fast as the law allows plus a few more miles per hour. And I practice my ‘happy face’ when I have to stop at the lights.

Then I Realize

Then I realize quite suddenly something horrible has taken place. I had put my right hand into my pocket to get my lucky rock to chill me out. It was then that I discovered that it was not there, that I left it at home.  It would still be in the right hand pocket of the pants I took off to get into what I am wearing now. So I quickly turn into someone’s driveway and back out facing the direction that leads to my home. I have to go back and get my lucky rock. I cannot face the competition without my lucky rock being with me, supporting me. I cannot do this completely on my own.

After what seems to be an especially long period of time, I finally arrive home. I pick up my lucky stone from the pocket of the pants that I had left on the bed. I will certainly be late for the meeting now. There is nothing I can do about it. And I do not want to tell anybody why it is that I arrived late. The respect for me that the boss has would probably drop significantly. Maybe I should claim car trouble.

Arrival in Disaster

As I approach the building that is my destination, I begin to see smoke rising ahead of me. When I arrive there I see what looks like the result of some kind of horrible explosion. There are windows that have been blown out, glass scattered on the pavement. And a broken door is lying on the sidewalk, like it was dead. There are two ambulances in front of the building, with several people being carried in stretchers into the back of the vehicles that will take them to the hospital. I walk up to two of my colleagues, who tell me that the new generator that the company had produced, and hoped to sell to us exploded when it was turned on.

I walk over to the boss and apologize for arriving late owing to car trouble. He tells me that he is very glad that I arrived when I did, so that I was not harmed by the deadly explosion. He reassures me that our company will continue to rely on me for the designing of generators, not a company that designs and creates explosions. I thank him.

As the boss and I part company, both of us smiling, I know that there is someone else that I need to thank. I take my lucky rock out of my pocket, hold it tightly in my hand, turn it over and over again, and say “Thank you my good friend. I would not have survived without your help. We are a team.”