I’m with my wife in New York City this week. Yesterday we walked to Central Park and did tourist activities, spending about five hours outdoors. I had on my sunscreen and my baseball cap. Walking back to the hotel, I removed my hat for the first time all day because it was warm and I expected to be in the shade of buildings all the way back to the hotel.
Within five seconds, a bird shit on my head.
His aim was phenomenal. He hit me in the center of what my unkind friend refers to as my “pink yarmulke.” From the bird’s view, that must have been an irresistible target.
I give the bird credit. It was an impressive load. That bastard must have been eating French fries in the park all day and saving it up for the right moment. The main tonnage hit the top of my head, but there was plenty left over for my shirt and arm. I didn’t see what kind of bird it was, but judging from the result, it was probably an ostrich. I’m also not ruling out pterodactyl, flying cow, or UFO full of aliens with dysentery. My point is that any volume of crap seems large when it’s on your head.
I cleaned up as well as I could, and walked to the hotel while wondering about the odds of being shat upon within that 5-second period of removing my hat. I saw about ten thousand people that day, and I was the only one covered with shit and cursing the sky. Let’s say there were 22 million people in the New York metropolitan area. I’m guessing no more than a million got crapped on. So that’s 1-in-22 right there, or .0455. And I was outside for 5 hours before I removed my hat, so that’s 204,000 seconds of protection compared to 5 seconds hatless, or .00002451. And since both the “crapped on” and “hatless” conditions had to happen at the same time, I multiply those two odds and get a .000001 chance of getting shat upon within 5 seconds of removing a hat.
I slept through statistics class, so that’s probably wrong. I just know it was unlikely, and it’s further evidence my life is nothing but a holographic program written by my long-dead self. This is exactly the sort of clue I would leave myself.
The US Open is this week, and some of the tennis pros are staying at the hotel where I’m at. A nice lady working in the lobby was complaining to me that she keeps missing her chance to get an autograph from Andy Roddick. She doesn’t follow tennis, but since Andy is famous, that was enough to want his signature. So if you will excuse me, I have to go do some work until I am famous enough for that lady in the lobby to want my autograph, and for the birds to give me some respect.