Once I felt like taking part in a literary game and writing about coincidences.
Absolutely nothing would come to mind; however, two incidents immediately returned to me, ones that had happened about ten years apart.
The first coincidence
When my younger son was five or six, we lived quietly and secludedly, practically did not receive guests, and spent holidays over tea, as a family.
And suddenly, right in the pre-New Year week (in secret I will tell you that I was born on Catholic Christmas Eve), an unexpected guest appeared: a kindergarten-and-school friend whom I had not seen since about seventh grade.
He had come on a business trip and decided to find me to congratulate me on my birthday. But that is not the point.
The guest brought a cake and a bottle of wine. But there was no corkscrew in the house, for lack of need.
We had to borrow one from the neighbors.
But that is not the main thing either.
A couple of days later I found myself in a hardware store and decided at last to buy a corkscrew just in case. To have one. So that if anything happened, we would not have to disturb the neighbors.
It was not bulky, did not take up much room, did not demand attention. Let it simply exist. I bought it — and immediately forgot all about it.
But the corkscrew did not forget about me.
It reminded me of itself quite accidentally in the most unexpected places: in the boss’s office, when I needed to take some document out of my bag; in a shop, when I was looking for my wallet; at the hairdresser’s, and so on and so forth.
You know what women’s handbags are like. Especially the handbags of businesswomen.
The corkscrew was taking revenge on me for its long corkscrewish lack of demand.
The second coincidence
Ten years passed. Or thereabouts. Or a little more.
An important colleague had an important anniversary. An enormous crowd gathered to congratulate him. Many officials with congratulatory folders and bouquets. An entire auditorium. And all the congratulators went up onto the stage. Imagine about three hours of monotonous speeches plus a concert.
Somewhere in the middle of the proceedings it was our turn to go out. There were two of us congratulators; we went onto the stage, performed our little scene (the tautology is intentional), presented gifts with bouquets, and in the finale were supposed to nail to the recently repaired stage a large star with the jubilarian’s name. To establish a local Walk of Fame, so to speak.
Let me remind you: I am a businesswoman. And of course I had a bag with me, from which I first took out a rather sizeable hammer, and then a huge nail in a cigar case.
Our congratulation brought the hall to applause and the stage director to tears.
But again, that is not the point.
For the next couple of months, either the hammer or the cigar case would quite accidentally fall out of my bag in the most inappropriate places, adding to my image of a businesswoman an aura of mystery.
Such are the amusing stories with accidental objects that have happened in my life.
And only the fact that I still love large bags is not accidental.
You never know what may suddenly...
