Scott Bush

How’s this for a lucky day? In line at Starbucks in the morning, I spy a wadded-up bill on the floor at the counter. Naturally, I bend down and non-chalantly pick it up. I look around but other than my carpooler and the baristas on the other side of the counter, no one’s around. Later, I unfolded the bill thinking it’s a buck or maybe five–nope, it’s a ten-spot. Cha-ching.

It also happened to be a day when my teammates and I were on a site visit, which meant we got to drive around to some communities out on the Kitsap peninsula. That meant taking a ferry… and taking a ferry meant coffee machine coffee! Not sure why, but I love coffee from those machines you find on ferries, in hospitals, and college cafeterias. My favorite: amaretto latte. So, while my colleagues shelled out $3 plus for lattes from the stand near the ferry slip, I waited with my dollar bill, ready to enjoy that machine-dispensed coffee beverage.

I approached the vending machine and gleefully stuffed my dollar bill into the payment slot. It didn’t take. I flattened it against my leg and tried again. Nothing. I was just thinking that something was wrong when I saw that it was actually very right: it was free. Yep, free. This is what I saw on the screen:

Nice, huh? I went back again later and got another, too.

It was my third wedding anniversary, and the lucky day continued with a delicious apple pie my wife baked. But, that was after karate class, where I got popped in the nose and bled a bunch. But it wasn’t broken so I consider that lucky, too.