You Lighter Up My Life
Recently, a friend who read my first book told me, “Al, I feel that you are the type of person that listens to the universe.”
It’s true, I listen to the universe. Either the universe, or intuition, or God, but I take notice.
I believe that seemingly random acts are not so random, and are connected.
Sufficient to say, I don’t believe in coincidences.
Not just acts that affect large, life changing events, but also those small, insignificant acts that fill the majority of our lives.
Let me preface this to say that I never smoked cigarettes, except for once in High School when I found a pack on the way to a football game and smoked the whole thing (How cool did I look?).
Also, cigars when we played poker, but you get my point.
I’m a non-smoker, there is no reason for me to carry a lighter.
No one in my life would ask me if I had a lighter.
Two days before New Year’s Eve, I took a walk through Somerville (New Jersey). It was nice, the town was decorated with lights, and Christmas songs filled the air. As I walked passed a restaurant, there were a group of twenty-somethings, and a young woman stepped out and asked me if I had a lighter.
I told her no.
“Oh,” she said, “I saw the hoodie (i.e,. I was wearing a hoodie) and thought…”
She never finished the sentence and stepped back to her group.
Do all people who wear hoodies smoke?
New Year’s Eve night, had dinner with my family and friends at a restaurant in Pennsylvania. At the end of the night, as we walked to our cars, a man outside the restaurant stopped me.
“Excuse me,” he said, then asked, “do you have a lighter?”
(I wasn’t wearing a hoodie this time so there goes that theory)
Told him, sorry, but no I did not.
That made me think.
In my entire life, no one ever asked me for a lighter. Then, within two days, two separate people asked me for one so it made me think.
If the universe wants me to carry a lighter, then I will carry a lighter.
Went on Amazon, ordered two packs with six-lighters each, and waited for their delivery.
Once they arrived I put one lighter in my pocket and waited for the universe to ask again.
I did not have to wait long.
Jump ahead a few weeks, to Super Bowl Sunday.
Went to the bar where a group of us had boxes in their Super Bowl pool.
My friend Bill was already there, and saved me a seat at the bar. Just as I entered, even before I reached my seat, the owner of the bar (Maria) came out of the kitchen and yelled, “Does anyone have a lighter?”
Excited, I shoved my left hand into my pocket, retrieved the lighter and lifted it above my head like Lady Liberty welcoming immigrants to America.
“I Do!” I shouted, probably louder than I did on my wedding day.*
Turned a few heads at the bar as they wondered why this idiot was so excited to hand over a lighter.
If they only knew.
Gave Maria the lighter, and told her to keep it (I had eleven more at home waiting to find their new friends).
That night, took the next lighter off the shelf, and now I just wait for the universe to call (again).
* the wedding day part of this line comes from my friend Bill when I told this story to some friends in a bar (where else).
