The Year of the Marshmallow

In the opening scene of the movie Magnolia, which is, by the way, my favorite movie, the narrator describes 3 unlikely events.

“In the New York Herald, November 26, year 1911, there is an account of the hanging of three men. They died for the murder of Sir Edmund William Godfrey; Husband, Father, Pharmacist and all around gentle-man resident of: Greenberry Hill, London. He was murdered by three vagrants whose motive was simple robbery. They were identified as: Joseph Green, Stanley Berry, and Daniel Hill. Green, Berry, Hill. And I Would Like To Think This was Only A Matter Of Chance. As reported in the Reno Gazzette, June of 1983 there is the story of a fire, the water that it took to contain the fire, and a scuba diver named Delmer Darion. Employee of the Peppermill Hotel and Casino, Reno, Nevada. Engaged as a blackjack dealer. Well liked and well regarded as a physical, recreational and sporting sort, Delmer's true passion was for the lake. As reported by the coroner, Delmer died of a heart attack somewhere between the lake and the tree. A most curious side note is the suicide the next day of Craig Hansen. Volunteer firefighter, estranged father of four and a poor tendency to drink. Mr. Hansen was the pilot of the plane that quite accidentally lifted Delmer Darion out of the water. Added to this, Mr. Hansen's tortured life met before with Delmer Darion just two nights previous. The weight of the guilt and the measure of coincidence so large, Craig Hansen took his life. And I Am Trying To Think This Was All Only A Matter Of Chance. The tale told at a 1961 awards dinner for the American Association Of Forensic Science by Dr. Donald Harper, president of the association, began with a simple suicide attempt. Seventeen year old Sydney Barringer. In the city of Los Angeles on March 23, 1958. The coroner ruled that the unsuccessful suicide had suddenly become a successful homicide. To explain: The suicide was confirmed by a note, left in the breast pocket of Sydney Barringer. At the same time young Sydney stood on the ledge of this nine story building, an argument swelled three stories below. The neighbors heard, as they usually did, the arguing of the tenants and it was not uncommon for them to threaten each other with a shotgun, or one of the many handguns kept in the house. And when the shotgun accidentaly went off, Sydney just happend to pass. Added to this, the two tenants turned out to be: Fay and Arthur Barringer. Sydney's mother and Sydney's father. When confronted with the charge, which took some figuring out for the officers on the scene of the crime, Fay Barringer swore that she did not know that the gun was loaded. A young boy who lived in the building, sometimes a visitor and friend to Sydney Barringer said that he had seen, six days prior the loading of the shotgun. It seems that the arguing and the fighting and all of the violence was far too much for Sydney Barringer and knowing his mother and father's tendency to fight, he decided to do something. Sydney Barringer jumps from the ninth floor rooftop. His parents argue three stories below. Her accidental shotgun blast hits Sydney in the stomach as he passes the arguing sixth floor window. He is killed instantly but continues to fall, only to find, three stories below, a safety net installed three days prior for a set of window washers that would have broken his fall and saved his life if not for the hole in his stomach. So Fay Barringer was charged with the murder of her son and Sydney Barringer noted as an accomplice in his own death. And it is in the humble opinion of this narrator that this is not just "Something That Happened." This cannot be "One of those things..." This, please, cannot be that. And for what I would like to say, I can't. This Was Not Just A Matter Of Chance. Ohhhh. These strange things happen all the time.”

***

2007 has ushered in some strange happenings in my life. On the upshot, I’ve been able to cross off a few things on my never-been-done-before list. Unfortunately, I would have preferred that all of those things remain on said list, unchecked. Ah well. Here is a run-down of the unlikely events of 2007 listed in ascending order of their unlikelihood and, as it happens, in reverse chronology.

First, or lastly, I guess, I got dumped. This probably isn’t a very unlikely event at all. Indeed, I should expect to get dumped at least every other time I start dating someone. However, that’s not how it’s worked out thus far in life. I’ve always been the dumper, rather than the dumpee. The unlikely part, then, is that this improbable streak lasted as long as it did. Nevertheless, streak over. Welcome to Dumpsville. I imagine there will be more to say about this relationship in the near future. For the moment, take it as the cherry on top of the worst start to a year in recent memory. I would like to think that this event was entirely unrelated to the preceding events, which I am about to recount. I would like to think that their juxtaposition in time was just a matter of chance.

A few days prior to getting dumped, I was the victim of acute road rage. This is actually quite unlikely, because I pride myself on being the most courteous driver on the road. Despite cutting my teeth on the mean streets of New York and Boston for the first 6 years I had my license, I had never once been flipped off. Not by a NYC cabbie or a drunken “Masshole.” Not even once. Then, the other day, some lady in a Corolla decided to object to my usage of the road, sped up to catch up to me for the purposes of rolling down her window and flipping me the bird.

There is some suggestion in English lore that the tradition of flipping someone off dates back to the Hundred Years War. When the French military would capture British archers, they would cut off their index and middle fingers – those used to draw back the bow – rendering the archers militarily useless. If the British archers eluded capture, however, they would flip up these fingers as they retreated in a display of defiance, as if to say, “Haha, we still have ‘em! See?” While the US has adopted a one-finger variation to this gesture, the UK and many of its present or former territories still retain the two-finger salute.

Perhaps the lady in the corolla, then, mistakenly thought I was of French descent and thought she would take the opportunity to pay homage to her British arrow-wielding ancestors. Of course, I cannot fully account for why she used the American version of the bird, nor why she also found it necessary to move over to my lane and drive behind me with her brights on. And I’m trying to think this was all just a matter of chance.

Third, I got sick. I’ve been remarkably healthy throughout my life. This is perhaps due to the fact that I am borderline obsessive compulsive about washing my hands and, more generally, I’m an insane germaphobe. But, hey, it’s worked for me thus far. That is, until some sickly hooligan, or perhaps Satan himself, coughed as he passed me on the street or sneezed on my breakfast sandwich, and hence communicated a rather virulent strain of the influenza virus into my body. Granted, the phrase ‘I had the flu’ is about as hackneyed as ‘I love you’ in our culture and neither phrase retains much in the way of actual meaningfulness any longer. But baby, I REALLY do love you. I mean, baby, I REALLY did have the flu. In practical terms, this meant that from the day the symptoms first presented, I felt body aches that would typically be associated with repeatedly getting run over by a city bus or maybe a Zamboni. And while the headaches and fever were also bad, they had at least been things I had experienced before. The fatigue, on the other hand, was something I had never seen before. For the 4 or 5 days that it was at its worst, I was probably awake for 3 or 4 hours a day, sleeping the other 20 or 21. But the absolute worst part was that this lasted for 14 days! In the end, I had lost 12 pounds (or 112 pounds if you count the girlfriend, too).

While I was laid up in bed, I did some research on the flu and came up with two interesting factoids. First, the first influenza pandemic killed more people in its first 25 WEEKS than the AIDS "crisis" has claimed in its first 25 YEARS! That’s hard to imagine. Second, and more relevant to our present discussion, the term ‘influenza’ derives from 15th century Italy and was used to denote a disease believed to be caused by influence (or maybe mal-influence) of the stars. Of course, modern medicine will tell you that influenza is caused by a virus entering your body. However, they will also tell you that their anti-viral medications will do little to aid in your recovery. First, anti-virals must be taken within the first 48 hours of onset of symptoms to have any effect at all. Second, even if taken in this small window, the drugs will likely only reduce the length of the disease by one day. Maybe the Italians were right some 600 years ago – medicine will do you little good, if the stars are conspiring against you. Celestial conspiracies or not, I would still like to think it was all just a matter of chance.

Now let me share with you the unlikely event that first got me rolling in the direction of rage, infirmity, and heart-ache. But let me warn you that you may, if you haven’t done so already, want to take a seat before you continue to read. Depending on your religious bent, what I am about to describe to you borders on the miraculous.

Many of you are familiar with the children’s cereal Lucky Charms. It’s a sweet oat and marshmallow mixture enjoyed by 7 year olds around the country. And by me. The cereal’s mascot, Lucky the Leprechaun, owes his good fortune to the various marshmallow shapes in the box – hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers, moons, pots of gold, rainbows, and red balloons (although the specific shapes change from time to time). The leprechaun exclaims, “They’re magically delicious!” as he runs away from greedy, charm-lusting children.

At the start of the year, I purchased a box of Lucky Charms, as I had done many times before. I tilted the box and poured out a rather large bowl full of cereal. Much to my dismay, there wasn’t a single marshmallow in the bowl. Not one! I quickly looked inside the box to see if perhaps I had received a defective-marshmallow-less box of Lucky Charms, but I could clearly see the normal compliment of marshmallows sitting in the box. I decided that I would pour my bowl of oats back into the box, give it a good shake, turn it upside down a few times and re-pour a bowl, hoping to land a few marshmallows this time. Before I re-poured, I peered inside to ensure that some marshmallows were sitting at or near the top this time. When I saw that there were marshmallows near the top, I poured a second bowl, only to find that I was again without marshmallows! Unbelievable! It occurred to me that this must violate some law of physics or probability or something.

Most of the above events that have befallen me since the cereal episode are interesting only in so far as they hadn’t happened to me yet. Indeed, I should expect to experience road rage, infirmity, and getting dumped again, if not several times in life. But to have zero marshmallows on successive bowl-pours? That was a once in a lifetime event! There are far too many marshmallows in that box to not receive a single one. It’s darn near impossible. But in order to find out just how impossible, or at least improbable, I would need some numbers. In order to get some numbers, I would have to sit down and count out how many marshmallows there were in a 20 oz box of Lucky Charms. Thankfully, Mrs. Wagner’s class conducted an intercontinental study on this very issue, concluding that there are about 523 marshmallows in a 20oz box of Lucky Charms.

Unfortunately, they failed to include one very important piece of information – the exact proportion of oats to marshmallows. For this information, I would have to call the General Mills helpline.

“Hello, and thank you for calling general mills. How can I assist you?” “I need to know the ratio of oat to marshmallows in a standard 20 oz box of Lucky Charms.” “What?” “I need to know how many marshmallows there are in a box of lucky charms, relative to the number of oat clusters.” “Hmmm. Why do you need this information, sir?” Clearly, the lady on the other end of the phone was trained to deal with spies from competing cereal companies. The ‘golden ratio’ of oat to marshmallow, it would appear, was a closely guarded trade secret. However, with some cajoling I got the information I needed, which I then turned around and sold to the makers of Kashi for a handsome sum. (Warning: Math Content. Further Warning: I cannot guarantee the accuracy of methods nor conclusions expressed below.) There are 2 and ½ cups of marshmallows per 20 oz box, meaning that the ratio of oat to marshmallow is 5.3 to 1. Combining this information with the study conducted by Mrs. Wagner’s class, I can conclude that in each box of Lucky Charms there are 3,294 pieces, and of them, 523 are marshmallows and 2,771 are oats. I can further estimate that my bowl can contain about 274 pieces of Lucky Charms, with two bowls containing twice that, or 548. If you were to reach into a box of Lucky Charms and pick out a single piece, we know from the above that your chances of NOT drawing a marshmallow are pretty good, about 84%. But what are the chances that you wouldn’t draw a single marshmallow on 548 consecutive draws, as happened to me? That would be .84 to the 548th power.

Or. One in 3 Tredecillion. For those of you unfamiliar with the number tredecillion, it has 42 zeros. (For comparison, a trillion has 12 zeros.) If impossibility were to be a number, I would imagine that it would have no more than 40 zeros, meaning that the cereal incident was some kind of impossible miracle. This cannot be "One of those things." This, please, cannot be that.

Lucky the Leprechaun supposedly derives his good fortune from possession of his charms, which is why he so doggedly fends off the little children. Without my charms, I was threatened by a total stranger for no apparent reason, I lost my woman, and I fell under the mal-influence of the stars. A coincidence? Well, you know how I feel about coincidence. At least I can now say that the most unlikely event I will likely ever face in life, mathematically, is behind me. I’ve got my health back and the rest of the box has way more marshmallows than it should. And like in the movie Magnolia, it appears to be clear skies from here on out, in this, the Year of the Marshmallow. But good fortune, if such a thing even exists, is often as unpredictable as the weather, and you don't need a cartoon Leprechaun to tell you that.