Have you heard the expression “good things come in threes”? This is known as the rule of three or as optimistic Romans often called it, omne triumperfectum. In which case, it stands to reason the converse is true as well. Do you believe bad things come in threes?
Perhaps folks who wear rose-colored glasses continue to expect good things along the road of life, but this past weekend dented if not shattered our rosy-lensed glasses. In order to gain a better perspective on our change in attitude from sunny to leery, travel with us back to the month of June.
Hubby and I drove north to attend his high school reunion in Oklahoma. The day was sunny and the usual toasty I associate with summer weather both in Texas and in the grand metropolis of Sulphur, Oklahoma. Perhaps calling Sulphur a metropolis is a stretch that would snap the imaginary rubber band into myriad and painful little pieces.
Let’s just say Sulphur is a small rather than the usual microscopic, blink-your-eye-and-miss-it sized town. After all, there was a fairly new Choctaw Hotel and Casino at one end of town. This particular weekend there was a fair or festival with booths that ran from the casino to the end of the street, dead-ending in a creek.
In spite of the deceptive perfect-blue-sky conditions, a steady flow of folks managed to survive the blazing sun that scorched all but the lucky ones under the booth canopies. If things became unbearably hot, folks could always duck into one of the air conditioned stores that were inexplicably busy.
Class reunions differ from family reunions because you tend to recall family members or at least their faces, but when it comes to old classmates, not so much. Even though most folks wore the obligatory name tags, aging eyes had a difficult time reading the scribbled names. After some not so subtle squinting and peering at faces and the tags stuck on people’s chests, most opted for the “Now, who are you?” All in all, resurrecting memories of the good times of yesteryear proved to be entertaining and fun.
Our journey home turned into the first bad thing. Under normal circumstances, the drive home takes a little over two hours, but not this day.
Suddenly, the skies darkened. The winds kicked up to an alarming rate. Lightning and thunder hopscotched between the clouds and the earth. The accompanying deluge, also known as heavy rain was not a fun rain. The swirling and blinding rain morphed into large hailstones. Did you know hailstones beating on a pickup truck are loud, as in cover-your-ears loud?
Hubby pulled off the road and stopped under a large tree. After thinking it over, he opted to deal with the pounding rain rather than risk a lightning strike to the tree. Nothing ruins a day like a tree crushing one’s nice truck.
As we crept along the highway, we saw several law enforcement vehicles as well as storm spotters’ vehicles about every mile or so along the road. Eventually, the light bulbs above our heads clicked on. Lucky us! We stumbled upon the tail end of a tornado.
After that tension-filled drive, home never looked so good.
Fast forward to last Saturday. This time we attended a family reunion in Oklahoma. At least it was easier to recognize folks.
Soon after we arrived home and settled down with our respective books, the skies turned a shade lighter than black. The winds began to howl. Lightning and thunder whistled an angry tune as the trees bowed and kissed the ground.
The symphony of 65-mile an hour straight-line winds, a lot of sound and fury, and no power for over six hours became the evening’s entertainment. Just as a show of force or perhaps a little temper tantrum, the wind tipped over one of our large fruit trees, roots and all.
Since the two destructive storms coincided with reunions in Oklahoma, do we tempt fate? Assuming bad things do indeed come in threes, perhaps we should forego future reunions in that state.