Don't Say, Piece of Cake!!

I'm probably dating myself, and I'm definitely taking some poetic license on a weak memory, but I seem recall and an episode of Seinfeld years back in which George kept saying "Oh, that'll be a piece of cake" and the ever-superstitious Jerry kept yelling at him and frantically imploring, "Don't say 'piece of cake' . . . people always say 'piece of cake' and then something goes wrong . . . horrrrrrribbly wrong!!"

I think the idea was, don't tempt fate.

Along the same lines, several people I know are very superstitious. Either out of real superstition, habit, or just a kitchy thing to do, they knock wood whenever they wish for something to come true, or not to come true, or they do certain things the exact same way each time because they believe it brings them good luck. Still other people I know, while not card-carrying "superstitionites," would probably not walk under a ladder, willingly break a mirror, or encourage a black cat to cross their path.

I am not superstitious in the slightest. Not an ounce. I just don't believe in it at all. I try to be respectful of those who do, but for myself, I just am not superstitious.

Well, many of my friendly, neighborhood superstitionites will feel vindicated by the latest events in our Journey to Jakarta and Beyond. As you may have seen, my last Blog post was about how thankful I am for my good fortune, namely the good health of my family. My superstitious friends, however, might have viewed that blog post as essentially saying "Piece of Cake," or tempting fate. But, since I don't believe in all that superstitious stuff, I did it. With no regret, restraint, or compunction, I said, "Piece of Cake."

Of course you know how this story ends . . . .

Shortly after writing that post, bad health issues befell everyone in my family. Here's how it went down:

We had a lovely Spring Break trip to Malaysia which I will write about very soon, but on the way back from Malaysia in the airport, Natasha spilled boiling hot soup on Logan's leg, causing him 1st degree burns and a hell of a lot of pain. After getting ice, I ran all over the airport trying to find a first aid center or doctor and trying to figure out how to translate "burn" and "hot soup" into Malay so someone would understand what I needed. Logan cried intensely after it happened, and of course Natasha felt horrible, but now Logan's being a very good trouper about it even though he's not allowed to swim for a week, which, to a swim-loving little 8-year old boy, is equivalent to solitary confinement. Later that night, we arrived from Malaysia and there was luggage all over the floor of our hotel room and Darren smashed his toe into some luggage and broke his pinky toe. Ouch!!

Then, two days later, Natasha had a fever and, since I was overseeing our move and the unloading of our overseas shipment, Darren had to cancel all meetings and take Natasha to the doctor. Wed, we found Natasha had roto-virus - a nasty little virus the details of which I won't go into - and it kept her out of school for three straight days. Then, around the same time, I was having painful back issues and had to make a quick chiropractor appointment to help alleviate the pain.

The burns, broken toe, fever/virus and back issues are all healing nicely now, but trust me when I say that all week I could not stop chuckling about the whole situation and hearing in my mind Jerry Seinfeld pleading to me: "Don't SAY Piece of Cake!!"