A Bridge Too Far

(A family friend is taking a road trip of maybe eight hours, and is stopping on the way to spend the night at our house. My mom’s brother lives near his destination and she’s decided to give his phone number to our friend as an emergency contact.)

Mom: *on the phone with her brother* “I don’t expect him to call you from prison or anything. He’s not a bad kid. He’s not even a bad driver; he just has bad luck. Weird things happen to him, especially on road trips.”

(Pause. He must have asked what she meant by bad luck.)

Mom: “Well, like getting exactly halfway through a trip, when nobody from either end could reach him in under three hours, and his car breaking down. Or like the time he was working at [Local Haunted House] and the prop toilet exploded and tore his leg up. That kind of bad luck.”

(My uncle eventually agrees to be an emergency contact, but still seems skeptical about our friend’s weird luck. The friend arrives that night about 12:30.)

Friend: “Hey, guys. Sorry I’m late. A bridge collapsed onto the road I needed to take, so I detoured into [Town he isn’t familiar with] and ended up lost.”

(We gave him my cousin’s number, too.)