washington d.c.

A Thorough Examination of Bird Poop Being Good Luck

Posted on by Ross Gariepy
This kid looks like he's in for a really lucky day

When it comes to things that are traditionally thought of as good luck, I tend to think about a rabbit’s foot, or a horseshoe, or maybe a lady bug.

Apparently I’m supposed to think of a bird’s feces landing on my head as good luck too.  Somehow it’s universally known that getting pooped on by a bird is good luck.

Is it though?

It seems like people say this every time a bird-pooping-on-man situation occurs, and yet I wonder if these people ever follow up to see if the poopee did indeed have good luck after.

Let’s see if we can dispel this myth once and for all through some serious investigation.

I actually know three people who have been pooped on by a bird in the last 10 days (one of them is me).  That number alone is startling.  The first incident was at a wedding I attended in D.C. two weekends ago. Between the ceremony and reception, we were enjoying a cocktail hour outside when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a steaming white dump fall from the sky.  Some poor guy got it all over his head and his nice suit. Of course the fact that his body and clothes got poop on them has to be considered bad luck.  If the myth of “bird poop equals good luck” is going to hold up, the poopee needs particularly awesome luck after this initial bout of bad luck, right?  Jump ahead four hours in the night, and this guy gets kicked out of the wedding reception by his own fiancee because she caught him dancing too provocatively with another woman.  The only way I can imagine bird poop being a good luck charm for this guy is if he was looking to get out of his engagement and this provided the perfect spark for that fight.  Otherwise, that is some shitty luck right there.

The second occurrence came last weekend when I left work early to go enjoy a nice day at the park.  I had a perfect plan that included drinking a six-pack and laughing at the ridiculous hipsters in the park, but I didn’t plan for the bird poop that splattered on my shirt right before I got there. I had no way to change my shirt for the next three hours so I enjoyed my beers with a nice white stain on me.  And there was really nothing lucky about my night…had dinner, got drunk, went to a karaoke bar.  Maybe you can consider it lucky that I didn’t get hit by a car while sprinting across Market Street for a late night cookie dough purchase from the grocery store.  I think we can consider my luck neutral during the post-pooping hours.

And finally, the third incident in question.  The pooping occurred only two days after my situation, and this person was actually at a race track betting on horses when it happened.  If ever the “getting pooped on is good luck” theory was going to be validated, it was this girl in this situation.  And what exactly happened?  Nothing good.  She didn’t win any money, and I found out that this particular bird had such a large bowel movement that it actually splattered on three or four people. Sounds like awesome luck, right?  Once again, no particularly good luck for any of these people in the days following all this.

There are only two other times in my past where I can remember being part of a bird poop situation.  It happened to me when I was in line to pay for a ticket to the Boston Aquarium my senior year of college.  But I think I had eaten some interesting mushrooms earlier that day so I don’t remember much more about it.  I probably spent three hours in the aquarium walking around with shit all over me, not a care in the world. The other memory is by far my favorite bird pooping moment of all time. It must have been 20 years ago when my family was in York Beach, Maine, for a summer vacation.  My brothers and I were on a morning walk along the beach with my grandfather.  One of the brothers thought it would be funny to throw his sandal at a couple of seagulls.  You know, fire a warning shot across their noses or something.  Well wouldn’t you know…the seagull he came closest to hitting took off into the air, swooped right over us, and dropped the ultimate revenge shit right on my brother’s head.  I’ve never had more respect for an animal than I did for that bird.  And of course this was terrible luck.  Now my brother had to go into a freezing ocean at 8AM to wash off his poop-encrusted hair.

I think we can officially consider this myth dispelled.  But you’ve gotta wonder, where did this ridiculous notion of good luck come from?  I scoured the web, and there appears to be a lack of information on this topic.  Here were my two favorite theories that I found:

1). “It’s considered good luck because you’re lucky that horses can’t fly.”  It’s a thinking man’s joke…go ahead and take your time to figure it out.

2). “It’s considered good luck because the odds of it happening to you are like one in a billion, which is more rare than winning the lottery.  So statistically if you’re able to get bird poop on you, then you should be able to win the lottery.”  Where do I begin with this ridiculous thought? Oh, how about the fact that I know three people who have been shit on in the past 10 days?  Or what about the odds of being struck by lightning or being in a plane crash?  Those are statistically far-fetched too.  I guess if one of those things happens to you it’s going to be your lucky day?

What does everyone else think?  Any good “bird pooped on me and then I had awesome luck” stories?

Choosing Your Meals for Your Last Day Alive

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

Traveling back to San Francisco from D.C. on Monday, I probably could have predicted that I wouldn’t be eating healthy at any point during the day.  Breakfast was going to be happening in the airport, and then I’d probably be too tired and lazy to go to the grocery store for lunch or dinner.  The day screamed “greasy takeout food,” but I definitely couldn’t have predicted just how amazingly gross my food intake would be.

Breakfast was a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich from Five Guys…with a burger patty added to it.  Amazingly there were about 25 other people at this restaurant in Dulles Airport ordering the same thing at 6AM.  That was washed down with a Diet Coke.  By the way, if you’re reading this and have never been to a Five Guys, stop reading right now and get to one.  It is definitely the best “fast food” burger you’ll ever eat.

Lunch was a Super Burrito at Pancho Villa in San Francisco.  Super meaning it had the works on it…cheese, sour cream, whipped cream, bacon fat, chocolate sauce and more.

And then finally for dinner, it was cheesesteak time at Phat Philly.  This wasn’t a normal cheesesteak situation though.  My friend had a groupon-like deal at this restaurant where our meal included a 12-inch cheesesteak each, an order of waffle fries topped with bacon and cheese wiz to split, one beer each and of course a dessert for each of us.

I joked shortly after that if I found out I only had one day to live, my meal choices for that final day wouldn’t be much different than what I consumed on Monday.  And it got me thinking…if you really did have only one day left to live, what would you choose to eat on that last day?

For me it would be the three meals I ate on Monday, but I’d add a fourth meal that would be a porterhouse steak with mac-and-cheese as the side.  And I would end my life with dessert in the form of as much ice cream as I could possibly eat.

Rather than put up a poll asking readers to vote on what their final day of meals would consist of, I’d like to see if we can get people adding comments to this post with their opinion.  I’ll be honest, the comment levels on this blog are pretty weak…maybe with the proper guidance you will all finally add some value to my already valuable blog posts.

I’ll be checking on the incoming comments while relieving my body of all that food from yesterday…just hope my iPad is charged up enough for me to spend all those hours in the bathroom.