does GOOD luck come in threes?

chris gave me an anniversary band a few weeks back, and i love it so. it matches the wedding band that we designed using his great-great-grandmother's diamonds, and i wear it on the other side of my engagement ring. three hours after i put it on my finger for the very first time, i looked down and realized that one of the diamonds was missing. gone. the prongs were there, the other stones were intact; i hadn't hit my hand or gotten it tangled up with anything. but there the hole was, mocking me. oh, one other detail to mention. i was sitting on the beach when it happened. you don't realize how many things glitter and shimmer on the beach until you're frantically looking for a diamond. in the previous fifteen minutes alone, i had swum in the ocean, helped susanna build a castle, and collected beach glass fifty yards away. i knew it was pointless to search, but still, i had to try. i got on my hands and knees, squinting at each grain of sand as it sifted through my hands. and then -- i found it. nestled about six inches away from a hole liam was starting to dig, there it was. unbelievable. fast forward to this past weekend. halfway through my second set in my tennis team's district playoffs, my strings broke. i was crushed, because the back-up racket i keep in my bag is so outdated and heavy and unusable that i'm not sure why i even bother toting around the thing. needless to say, i was thrilled when our pro shop re-strung my main racket directly following the match. i will not bore you with the details of how the rest of the story unfolded ... just that i placed this newly re-strung racket on the top of my car when i got home. a few minutes after chris left to take the kids to the pool, my phone rang. "well, honey," chris sighed, "you neglected to tell me your racket was on the roof." driving down one of the major roads in our neighborhood, he realized something had flown off and pulled over to retrieve it. but before he could open the door, a car came behind him and ... CRUNCH ... my racket was toast. he grabbed it from the asphalt and tossed it in the back, i'm sure marveling at how air-headed his wife could be. (good thing he had already given me that ring.) this is where it gets really crazy. i was in the line-up for the finals on sunday afternoon, and brought my run-over racket to the pro shop to see if there was a demo that might work as a similar substitute. i handed it to the manager, telling him the story, when he inspected it and then gave it back to me. "i don't know how," he said, "but it's actually fine. aside from the tire marks on the rim, you're good to go. not a crack anywhere on the frame." unbelievable. so i played (and wound up winning) with my run-over racket. my team is now headed to state championships in pinehurst in a few weeks. a diamond, lost in the sand: found. a tennis racket, run over in the middle of the road: unscathed. i should sign off now. i'm going to go buy a lottery ticket.