I'm reading a book at the moment called 'A Pocket Guide to Superstitions of the British Isles'. I was reading it on the bus this week, and nearly dropped it when I saw under a heading 'Domestic Superstitions' that finding money is unlucky.
I've been finding money for a good year now, so as I sat there I started to reflect on all the things that have happened to me since the project began.
It's true that in the past year I seem to have had more big problems than I ever did before.
There was the day I fainted while waiting for my bus and came round on the pavement with one of my teeth smashed in half. Oh I can laugh about it now...
And there have been loads of niggly problems with my car - the time the window wouldn't go back up when I put it down to get through a ticket barrier, costing me £150 for a new regulator; the time I was rushing to get my mum to a karate exam and mangled the side skirt driving over a high kerb; the time my battery died as I drove home from my allotment, leaving me sat, alarm wailing, outside an older people's care home. Hmm.
Handily, further down the page, the book said that "throwing a shoe after someone" was lucky. Brilliant. As long as I keep doing this - whenever I'm handed money by someone, I remove a shoe and throw it at them, or if I find money myself, lob a shoe in the direction of the nearest stranger - it'll counteract any bad luck I might otherwise get. I wish I'd read this book last year.
Anyway, back to business as usual.
Monday - Craig asked me my policy on finding money down the back of the sofa, I nodded, and he handed over a 20p.
Thursday morning, we had a fire alarm at work. A real one. Well, a real practice one, where we had to go and shiver outside in a fog of cigarette smoke. When all the excitement was over, we started trooping back to the office, and Nix spotted a penny on the pavement.
Later on Thursday, I wrestled with the decision for 5 seconds before ending up in Starbucks. It turned out to be absolutely the right thing to do, because I found a penny on the floor.
Week Sixty-eight
How much found: 22p
Total found so far: £52.14
How it could now be spent: a copy of Sharing Knowledge Across the Mediterranean Area: Towards a Partnership for Sustainable Management of Resources and the Prevention of Catastrophes (NATO ... Science Series: Human and Societal Dynamics).
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