Things that Happen (to me)

I am one of those people that Things Happen To.

If there are a group of people standing under a tree, and a bird poos on one person's head, then that person will be me.

 
If a number of people are standing around a pool, and a piece of rotten wood gives way causing one of those people to fall through the pool decking, then that person will most definitely be me.

So it should come as no surprise, that if two people are walking down a street in Thailand...

 

...and one of them falls into a sewer...

....then yes, that person will be me too. 

That person will crawl out of that sewer smelling like sh*#.
The sewer will just happen to be situated in full view of a schoolyard.
And serendipitously, that school will be in the middle of its lunch-break, so there will be plenty of children around to witness the person falling into the sewer, and then crawling out smelling like sh*#.
The witnesses will quite possibly talk for weeks about the strange foreigner who fell into the sewer.
And that strange foreigner WILL ALWAYS BE ME.

I'm not saying that I'm the only person in the world that Things Happen To. 
I mean, I'm sure there are loads of other people who fall into sewers on their holidays.
I cling to that belief.

It's just that...I would like to be one of those other kind of people that Things Happen To.
The kind who just happen to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to get backstage at concerts.  The kind who get upgraded to business-class and win the lottery and fall in love with the people who pull them out of burning buildings. 

That other kind of Things-Happen-To people.

But since I am not one of those people (yet), I guess I'll just have to be content with the fact that I will always be able to recall the feel of raw sewerage against my skin. 

And they never will.