Imagine you're on the trail of a deranged, thumbless, retired cop, out to get some serious back pay. He puts a gun to your head and says, "What do you do? What do you do, hot shot?"

Presumably, you're going to ask yourself, "Do I feel lucky?"

Well, do you? Punk.

But maybe you're thinking, what the heck is going on? It's days like this that you wish you had never gotten up in the first place, right? And then you're thinking, well, do I feel lucky? What is my criterion for judging luck anyways? What does it mean to be lucky, really? You begin to philosophize with this crazy cop; he wearies of these apologetics and shoots you dead.

Being in a high intensity situation such as this scenario is not the best time to realize that you have a gap in your knowledge box; questions concerning the meaning of life and love, happiness and death, good and bad luck, should be cleared up as soon as possible.

Always ask yourself, what is your desired outcome in a given situation? And what would be completely opposite to anything you could possibly desire to happen? Now, if an outcome works in your direction, it is acceptable for you to consider yourself lucky. This is obvious; what is not obvious, is knowing what is working for you and what is working against you — sometimes it is difficult to tell.

Take, for instance, a little incident that occurred in the life of a friend of mine, which I like to call the chicken nugget incident: A guy walks into his friend's place of business; he asks for the nugget and fry meal deal; it's not really a meal deal; it's actually a rip-off. So he politely asks for an extra nugget, he's 6 feet 4 inches and hungry. What would you do? Well, my friend breaks the restaurant rule, slipping his friend a nugget on the sly. But the boss sees this indiscretion and my friend is caught. One might consider my friend unlucky.

But, let's evaluate, how unlucky is my friend? It is not every day that you get the opportunity to help your fellow human, is it? How many times in one's life is he or she able to "stick it to the establishment" and help the little guy? Sharing an act of kindness, against all the odds, with a fellow citizen. It should be considered lucky.

And how about those situations of more common occurrence? Take, for instance, the interplay between walkers and bikers every day on this campus. Two fellow students are strolling toward Debartolo; they are lollygaging, blocking the whole pathway. A biker zooms up behind these oblivious students; he maneuvers to the right, no outlet, he maneuvers to the left, still no place to pass. He begins to curse his bad luck internally, thinking if only he had gone around the science hall.

But, really, after he stops cursing himself and the students who are slower than spit going up a concrete hill on a hot day, he finds that extra grass he needs and zooms past them. He might even startle them so that they become as mad at him as he was at them and he makes it to Debartolo more quickly than they. The biker is not so unlucky anymore is he?

Of course, one could go on, rattling off occurrence after occurrence where one's level of luck ought to be reevaluated. But this would be a slight digression from a most important point. And I don't like to digress from important points.

I'm talking about the holidays. They are finally upon us. We must consider holiday travel. And holiday travel, most especially, is when the laws of the unlucky and the lucky are active.

Take, for instance, past travel experiences; everybody ought to have something go not quite right while traveling. Perhaps a tire went flat on a deserted stretch of highway where the only help existed in the form of a desolate house surrounded by barbed-wire fence?

Perhaps, it was a missed connection or maybe even sitting next to a really crabby lady with passive aggressive tendencies who spills her Bloody Mary drink on your new sweater? Anything can happen when you travel.

Take, for instance, when an airline (with a double vowel) which will remain nameless chooses to cancel its flights out of South Bend. What are you going to do? The airline gives you two choices to get out of town: either take a taxi or the bus. You are a risky dude so you hop into the cab bound for Chicago O'Hare. Traffic piles up for miles since you're not the only one with a travel agenda. But, hey, at least you were not in the bus. And you may even have more delays, more false ticket information, more freaking long lines and when you feel things beginning to go your way, be prepared for the full-body metal detection because you just won't remember every piece of metal on your body. And when you finally get to the plane, don't be surprised if a big man, who swears you look familiar, can't stop making eyes at you the entire flight.

But you will not be unlucky! Oh no. And why?

Where the heck are you going? You are going home, home for the holidays; you should have nothing to do for a whole month, with parents who miss you and treat you like a special guest (as long as they can) and brothers and sisters who ought to give you some respect for a little while. And food, hello, the food is alone worth it. So as Bon Jovi says, "Friends and relations send salutations … this is Christmas … Christmas my dear, the time of year to be with the ones that you love."

The next time you might be unlucky, philosophize a little to make certain you're not in actuality an extremely lucky son of a gun. And have a Merry Christmas break.

Anna Barbour is a junior theology and pre-med major. Her column runs every other Wednesday.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.

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