Getting Lucky

In a little bar in downtown San Francisco a little old lady sits every Thursday night. She sits double fisting - water in one hand, orange juice in the other - and she waits. She waits at the bar top. She h
as her drinks refilled before they ever reach the bottom. She sits. She waits. You see, Thursday nights just to happen to be the night that three of the hostels in San Francisco get together to do a pub crawl. And Lucky only goes out on Thursday nights because she "likes to meet all the different people from all over the world."

A couple weeks ago, I just so happened to be a member of that same Thursday night pub crawl group that traipsed from one local bar to the next before making our way into Lucky's spot, our third stop of six for the night. You could ask me the name of the bar. But I wouldn't be able to tell you. In fact, I have no idea what any of the six bars were called. I just know one had a giant olive on the sign out front, another was an English-style pub, and one seemed just a little too big for it's britches. But, that's beside the point.

At Lucky's bar, she sits every Thursday night. Sipping her OJ and water, and waits for the group to come through the door. The bar stools all around Lucky are empty. I think she does this strategically. I think she purposefully keeps those stools open so that some of these foreign strangers will have to sit beside her. And wouldn't you know it, one of those very stools was calling my name.

It could have been the fact that within minutes of sitting down next to Lucky we were have a Johnny Cash sing-a-long. Or maybe it was that she reminded me of one of my grandmas (nanny). But nonetheless, Lucky and I sat and chatted. About everything from San Francisco to her ex-husband. Lucky is in the process of writing a book right now. No, she hasn't written anything else. Why? "Because I only do things once. One husband. One book. I don't like to do things more than once." Lucky explains to me. And even though she's lived in San Francisco for the last twenty years you can still detect that East-coast, Bawwston accent in her every word.

Lucky makes me smile. Lucky makes me laugh. And when she scrawls her address on a piece of scrap paper and hands it to me and asks that I send her a postcard from somewhere during my travels, how could I even think to say no.

Lucky goes out on Thursday nights. She sits in the same bar and she waits. She sips, alternating between her orange juice and then her water. She sits in the bar and she waits for some new friends. If you're Lucky enough to be in San Francisco on a Thursday night, maybe you'll meet her too.