I Know I Am The Lucky One, On The Wheels, On The Tabletop, On The Handles Where The 7's Stop, On The Floor, On My Heels Again, I Know I'm The One

--"The Lucky One", Mary Lou Lord

When I was a kid I used to collect chains. Moreover, I used to connect them all together in a giant, snake-like chain that served as both my house keys and my car keys. My keychain was so large it no longer fit in my jeans packets. By the time I was done stringing it together, it comprised some thirty odd keychains from all over the country. Looking back, it was pretty ridiculous. I don't even know why I started collecting them other than I've always had a somewhat obsessive personality. At the time, it felt more convenient to hook the first couple of together rather than try to decide which one to get rid of. Of course, Brandy tells me it was just part of the larger trend to call attention to myself. I grant her that because I was always showing off my handiwork; the larger it got, the more of a production I made of hauling it out of wherever I was keeping it at the time and the more I pretended it wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

Of course, everyone should be making large keychains. It's the smart thing to do, I would say. Inside, I was beaming at the amount of spectacle people bestowed on it.

I can't tell you exactly how many years it remained in that condition. I remembered starting it in the late 80's with my set of house keys, then it continuing well past driving age. I can even remember lugging my set of keys to West Virginia to visit Jina for the first time. Yes, I was that much of a dork. I thought it would be a neat thing to show her so, even though there was nary a door or car in sight that my keys would work, I proceeded to pack them away in my suitcase in order to parade them in front of her. Probably the monster keychain came to an end soon after that visit because it become increasingly apparent that having a dangling rope of keys was a hazard to driving and was impractical when it came to carrying my keys with me. Undoubtedly, I probably should have dismantled it when I was done, but it seemed too much of an entity to take it apart piece by piece. It would have almost seemed like I was killing it. Instead, I just transferred all my keys to a nondescript Red "T" (for Taroc) keychain my mom had given me and that was the end of the reign of the large keychain.

I handled my keys in such a fashion for a few more years, never once thinking it'd be worth it to get a more personalized token. To me having a keychain as an object which symbolized me died the moment I put my first keychain into storage. After that I was just thinking practically. All I wanted was something that wasn't too large and was able to fit all my keys comfortably. I kept the "T" working for two or three years without giving much thought to replacing it.

Then one day while I was still at USC I decided to get a Boston Red Sox keychain. It wasn't any momentous decision. Nothing happened to make me think of it. The way I recall it is I was at the USC bookstore and saw they were giving away Trojan keychains. One of the volunteers asked me if I had one already. I told her no. Right then and there I thought I really should have something that denoted I was going to USC... or denoted at least something about me. A red "T" is far too broad of a message to be spreading about myself. I decided in that instant I needed something that spoke about me or, at the very least, symbolized something that was important to me.

I went ahead and ordered the Red Sox keychain the very next day.

When I got it I immediately started using it, but it didn't provide me with any kind of great satisfaction. I wasn't beaming when I received. I wasn't beaming knowing it was in my pocket. I wasn't beaming every time I took it out of my pocket. In short, yes, it said something more about what was important to me but it didn't hold any special qualities for me. It was just a keychain. It just happened to be a keychain featuring my favorite sports team in the whole world. Yet it didn't feel important. It didn't feel revered.

It didn't feel lucky.

Then one day I received a gift in the mail. Lucy had just started at UGA and she was going tchotchke-crazy. I had had the discussion with her that she didn't need to send me anything because what was I going do with some Georgia stuff. I just didn't see the point of having something that was from somewhere that wasn't special to me. I thought it would be like when my aunts would give me sweaters and shirts that they thought looked good (or were on sale) without any real consideration for me or what I liked. I mean--yeah, I was glad she was proud of her school. I knew what it was like to want to tell the whole world how awesome the institution of higher learning you are fortunate enough to be attending is, but very few people outside of your parents share your enthusiasm I've found. It's one thing if they happen to be visiting you on campus. The new experience and your depth of knowledge of the nooks and crannies of the grounds are enough to impress anyone, but sending random swag really isn't all that impressive most of the time. I thought it would be one of those situations where I'd thank her profusely and then hide away whatever she gave me in the back of my closet, never to see the light of day again.

What I received was a t-shirt with the Georgia block letter logo on it. Pretty cool, but it wasn't in grey like most of the t-shirts I wear and it was kind of thick. I knew I'd have problems with overheating like I do with most thick cotton shirts I have. I put the shirt aside to see what else she had bought me. That's when I found a UGA keychain. I picked it up. It wasn't some cheap, plastic item. It was made out of some metal, possibly pewter or other heavier metal, but it looked to be made out of brass. Not only that, but it had the University seal etched on one side and their mascot, UGA, on the other side. I'm not kidding you when I saw the construction was fine enough that I could probably have made the keychain my official seal and pressed it into hot wax like they used to in the middle ages. It was pretty cool.

But what put it over the top was the short note at the bottom of the box:

I know you said the somewhere isn't special to you, sugar, but I'm betting the someone is. Don't think of these as supporting a university that doesn't mean anything to you. Think of it as supporting someone who does.

I never believed in lucky charms before. I have a lot of superstitions, but I never put much faith into an object or objects to fill me with a sense of security or good luck. Yet every time I place that keychain in my pocket, I do feel like I have someone out there watching out for me if only because it was a gift and because it wasn't sent out of any pretense of obligation. It wasn't my birthday. It wasn't Christmas. It was just sent because she wanted to share her joy. That idea behind the gift of the keychain makes it more cherished than any of the forty of its kind I've collected over the years.

Yeah, I take it with me as kind of a good luck charm. You could say it's the closest thing I'll ever have to one. But it's more than that. It represents a change of focus for me. Before, I used to haul out that big keychain to get people to notice me.


I'm the one, I'm the one, I'm the one

Now I'm happy with just that keychain because it represents the one person who I wanted to notice me. Even if no one else ever sees the keychain, I see it and I know. I no longer need the attention of everyone in the entire world as long as I've got the attention of one person in particular.

That makes me feel like the luckiest guy on Earth.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers