Death by Threes

Have you ever noticed that famous people die in groups of three? No, I don’t mean that once someone becomes famous they have to find two partners to die with at the same time. I mean that when one famous person dies, usually two more will die within a week. Groups of three.

This goes along the same line as bad things happen in groups of three. If one bad thing happens, more than likely two other bad things will happen and then you will be safe for a while.

Case in point: the week before last the burner on my stove died. I went into the kitchen to check on my dinner and the big burner, the left front one I use the most, was bright orange in one spot and a flame was coming out of it. My reaction? I calmly reached over and turned it off. The flame died, the bright orange went away and I finished what I was cooking on another burner. The next day I turned the burner on and nothing happened. It had burned out. So I called my landlord and he came over and replaced it.

Part of me thought, at this point, that, since the bad thing happened to something that technically belonged to the apartment and not to me, I would be safe from the “death by threes” rule. Well I wasn’t.

Last week I was watching a movie my brother loaned me (Star Trek The Final Frontier, if you must know) and I fell asleep part way through. I turned off the DVD player and the TV and went to bed, thinking I would just watch the rest the next night. The next night I tried to turn on the DVD player and nothing happened. It was dead.

This had happened before and I switched the plug to another outlet on the power strip and it came on. So I tried this and it was still dead. Ok…that is a very old power strip…I’ll just buy a new one. Which I did. DVD player is still dead. Bummer.

What next? A day or two later, after I downloaded a bunch of pictures off my camera, I went to delete those pictures and the screen doesn’t work anymore. The camera has died. Also a bummer.

That makes three. Three things that I use on a regular basis have all kicked the bucket. Breathed their last. Gone to the great electronics store in the sky. In other words….died.

I could ask but I am pretty sure that my landlord will not replace my DVD player or buy me a new camera. He’s a nice guy but I just don’t think he will do that. The camera can wait until Christmas (as in…maybe Santa will bring me one for Christmas) since I do have the camera in my phone, which actually takes pretty great pictures. And I do have a blue ray DVD player. But the remote for that isn’t the best in the world. So I am going to keep an eye out for sales and replace my DVD player as soon as I can. Its either that or suspend my subscription to Netflix. Since my queue for Netflix stands at somewhere around 82 movies, I kind of would like to continue getting them.

I’m not a suspicious person by nature. I’m not nervous on Friday the 13th, I don’t believe that stepping on a crack would break my mother’s back (her bad back started long before I was born although I know it is fine now that she is in heaven), breaking a mirror has never brought me seven years of bad luck and I own a black cat who crosses my path several times a day. So my theory about “death by threes” is not a superstition but merely an observation. I have noticed that famous people die in threes and bad things happen in threes.

Since three things just died in my life, I am safe for a while. “A while” being a general term for the length of time from now until something bad happens to me. Then another and then another. And life goes on. Well, except for my dead things. Their lives are over and they will spend eternity in the trash. RIP!