to stay low

A year ago, a tremendously bad luck covered me. Please read the 13 posts during January 2008. This year, this month, I have sensed some not-so-good luck coming after me.

1.
On the day as I was stuck in the DC airport, one of my favorite co-workers got a two-week notice of "yeah, we truly appreciate your work, but you are fired" for the reason of the bad economy.
Yesterday I was very naive and emailed him a project. He was like "don't you dare use me anymore before I leave! I was already highly humiliated by the company-wide announcement!" I was embarrassed and almost could not work for the day because the mix of shock and sadness totally struck me.
Hugging my cup of hot green tea, I went to Ms. Protocol's office, asking her how come I didn't know about the news. She showed me the email. I swear to the email god, I did not receive the so-called company-wide announcement!!! Was I got kicked out the company-wide emailing list? Because they are going to fire me too? Wait a minute.. They have to hire me in a few months before having the right of firing me. So, no worries, it was just some email god gave me a bit bad luck.

2.
Last Friday I finally took Bungbung for a check-up. Among many things needed to be done, the lock and a hub cap were asked for being recovered. After three hours of waiting (which is a normal wait), I was told that the circuits of the lock latch inside the door has shortage. The door has to be opened, not open for a passenger to enter the car, but open for a technician to replace the inside wires of the door. However, they don't have the latch part available, and it will take days to order a new part. Plus labor hours, it will cost me about 300 dollars to fix the lock. I told Rick, my tech representative, please put a note on my file and I may deal with it next time I come another oil change.
Bungbung was waiting for me on the parking lot with all four hub caps on his wheels. I was very happy to see him fully dressed. The one that had been missed and now placed back was lost last January (exactly!) Because roads in New Jersey are full of holes. Because during the winter, trucks easily plow icy mud with road parts everywhere in New Jersey. I drove through a big hole and lost Bungbung's cap. Anyway, Bungbung got all four caps again.
Today as I came to Bungbung after leaving the office, the cap was gone.
The new cap was gone.
No more new shoe for you, Bungbung.

3.
After watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall during the weekend, the DVD player went on strike. It refuses to play any more DVDs. Why? Forgetting Sarah Marshall has become one of my favorite romantic comedies! It is filled with all witty creative jokes, so so so so so funny and not as dirty as Superbad (which is pretty funny too). You should have been on strike after playing a movie such as The Day The Earth Stool Still.
Fine, I said, the DVD player was bought very cheap and may have lived longer than it should have been. Thus, I went to buy a new player. My Sanyo TV is old, bought five months after I entered the graduate school. Therefore, I did not want to get a nice fancy DVD player to pair with the TV. My decision was to get another super cheap player and called it a day.
The super cheap player came home with me. It did not play anything inserted into it.
I somehow was very calm and wondered what these two players in common. Both were made in China, cheap with one less than 40 bucks and the other one less than 30, and came with the same label "Progressive Scan". Holy, I thought they belonged to different brands. It turned out that Progress Scan is the brand name while Philco and Memorex are the model names.

One morning after a satisfying breakfast, Mama and I were dozing off in the couch with some talk show on TV. One woman was gossiping about a guy's bad luck and said "when one is in bad luck, he only attracts negative energy, so anyone he meets during that period of time will only bring bad luck to him."
Mama suddenly yelled out "oh that is so true!" I could have jumped out of my skin with the abrupt voice coming from her. Therefore, the above-mentioned three incidents totally remind me of her remark.

Even though both Eastern and Western cultures agree that three make a set, I prefer to stay low key and not to attract more possibilities for bad luck coming near me.
I will leave office no later than 5:30 pm before the roads got all frozen.
Bungbung will obey speed limits and may even run a bit slower.
No more China-made DVD players will be paired with my TV.


[Post hoc note a day later after purchasing a good "Designed by Samsung & assembled in China" player:
Progressive Scan actually marks a good characteristic of a DVD player and means that the player plays the DVD well and fast. That is, the two lemons wasted my money and time were indeed two brands.]