An everyday bizarre example of this is people considering themselves
"lucky" if they get hit by a car and live. They never say they were
"unlucky" to get hit by a car!

------------------
Hakeeb A. Nandalal
nanco@trinidad.net
------------------

My wife and I were hit by a truck on October 12th.  I can testify that
many people exclaimed over our good luck in surviving.  Others said we
must have a guardian angel. As these generally have been friends and
relatives, who are trying, in their own way, to express their joy that
we are still alive, we have generally tried to use humor in response,
saying things like, "I wish the damned angel had done a better job, cna
we get a different one?" or "Lucky? If we were lucky the truck would
have missed!"  Other people advised us to get lottery tickets, as our
luck was "bound" to change.  As we buy tickets anyway, I am sure that if
we had won something anytime after the accident, this would have been
cited as general support for somebody's new age ideas on luck.

-- 
Reality is that which,    godfree@magi.com    
when you stop believing   http://infoweb.magi.com/~godfree/
in it, doesn't go away.   Internet Infidel    
http://www.magi.com/~hac/hac/html
Philip K. Dick            http://www.infidels.org Humanist Association
of Canada
