Winnie the Pooh - "Hello out there! Oh, I hope nobody answers."
~ from "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day"
Walking down 5th avenue in Brooklyn last Thursday, on my way to work, I found a penny, heads up, right at the corner of 6th street. I never pass up a penny on the street, or anywhere for that matter, for reasons I'll explain later. In any case, I always pick up the penny and say, under my breath, "penny heads up, good luck. Hi, Cindy!" Whether or not the penny IS actually heads up is not important. When I find one, anytime, anywhere, my perception is always that it's heads up.
Half a block from 5th street I noticed yet another penny. Now, I'll be the first to admit that at least half the time, in this exact situation, I have a serious internal debate for about five seconds that includes whether or not to pick it up, who's walking behind me, will they think I'm nuts, who's walking towards me etc. etc and then, as always, I pick it up. Now I'm two pennies in to my good luck when I notice a small piece of paper tumbling down the sidewalk right next to my right boot - literally, keeping step with me. I could tell, almost immediately, that it was a fortune from a Chinese fortune cookie. Again, the internal battle rages on but, and I swear to you I'm not embellishing this in any way to make the story more appealing, it really, truly was, well, chasing me. Rolling along the sidewalk right alongside me as if it was attached to an invisible piece of string with Alan Funt tugging on the other end. It got to the point where I laughed out loud and then thought to myself, "Pick the damn thing up before you miss your opportunity! Someone is trying to tell you something!!"
So, I picked this piece of paper up, this fortune, and it reads - "Your love life will be happy and harmonious." Sweet.
My cousin Cindy was on one of my best friends growing up. More like a sister. We were two months to the day apart in age with me as the elder. We were pretty much the same size up until our late teens and we were both competitive athletes. The only thing she could never beat me at was swimming. We spent our summers together at the lake where our families each rented summer homes, Budd Lake, NJ. Her house was just down the road from ours and in the years before I was permitted to walk that stretch of road on my own, my entire morning was spent waiting impatiently for either my mother or my Aunt Dot to bring me down to Cindy's so she and I could begin our day. The days were 24 hours long. No TV reception made for long days filled with swimming practice, bike riding, tree climbing, board games, comic books and fishing. On occasion we would take the walk to the local farm stand with our grandmother and she would sort through peaches, plums, tomatoes and whatever else looked good to her that day while we played.
The Summer before we turned 13 we sat in my Dad's car, parked in our driveway back by the barn, and discussed topics like great trips we would take together once we had our driver's licenses and how later that very day my uncle would be taking us out on the lake to water ski. Our talks very often went in the direction of the paranormal as we took great pleasure in scaring the crap out of each other. So, just minutes before we got out of the car we had a short discussion about signs we would give each other from the great beyond if one of us died. Secret signs that only we could read, knowing that the dearly departed cousin was acting as a guardian angel for the living cousin. I can't, to this day, remember what I told her my special sign would be but I do remember vividly that she said a penny on the ground meant she was nearby. Pennies from heaven.
She was killed in a car accident on August 20, 1982 and since then I have yet to pass up a penny on the ground. As a matter of fact, just a few months ago I received change in a store after a purchase and I could feel that the coin in my hand was different. It felt as if I was holding an old subway token.
She's such a show off-y angel. Sweet.
So did you play the numbers on the back of the fortune??? You still can! Split it with you...
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Pegleg
love this.
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