What’s the Third Thing?

Each morning, my friend and neighbor, Kevin, drives two miles out and two miles back to retrieve our newspapers.  On his way home, he stops at my house with my paper.  We normally engage in a small conversation when I run outside to get the paper.  Kevin arrived in my driveway at about 5:40 this morning.  I trotted out to grab my newspaper from him.

“How is it going?” I asked as I grabbed my paper through the open window of his SUV.

He grimaced a little and made fists with his hands, indicating that his arthritis was bothering him.  “I picked some rocks in the rain yesterday,” he said.  “I am paying for it.”

I nodded.  “Yup.  Gonna be one of those days,” I said.  “My boiler gave out the day before yesterday.  I am looking at about two-thousand bucks there.  Last night my hot tub crashed.  The ground-fault breaker won’t reset.”

“Uh-oh.  What’s the third thing?” Kevin asked.

I laughed.  Colleen and I had the same discussion last night.  Failures always come in groups of three.  “Well,” I told Kevin, “I have a spare coffee maker, if that’s next.”

“In that case, I hope your coffee maker is next.”

“Same here.”

Posted today, is a photo of my spare coffee maker.  As you can see, the coffee maker is brand new.  I have not even opened the box.  When it comes to coffee, I take no chances.

--Mitchell Hegman