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Make your own luck,

published at 12:10am on 10/23/06

On the evening of March 20th, 2006, on the sidewalk outside of my apartment, I came across six pennies scattered fairly close to each other, clearly having just fallen out of somebody’s pocket. Pennies being what they are (the homeless man on the street imploring “help feed the homeless, help make a difference, even a penny makes a difference” not withstanding), it was nevertheless surprising to me to find so many of them in one spot, like finding a cluster of four leaf clovers in the grass outside your front door after scouring the entire yard and turning up none.

I picked them up, all six of them, and walked down the street towards the subway. Every couple of steps I stopped and placed one of them, carefully, heads up, on the sidewalk, in the hopes that the luck of a heads up penny could be spread across six different people heading home from work that evening. I felt pretty good about myself as I placed the fifth penny down and smiled as I looked back behind me. For the most part I knew they would be ignored, passed by, kicked around, the little copper heads on the dirty city street. But a part of me held out hope that someone, a romantic like myself, would come across it, stoop down and whisk it up. A penny! Heads up! What luck!

Is a penny purposely placed heads up as lucky as one that happens to fall face up accidentally? Is it lucky at all? I heard once that if you find a penny lying face down that you are supposed to flip it over and leave it for the next person who comes across it. Can luck really be manipulated like that, so easily?

I like to think so.

Oh, and that sixth penny? I kept it for myself. It had been sitting face up when I found it.

Filed under: Personal