It's hard reading the omens when you can't recognise them.
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I walked into the shopping centre the other day to get my flu shot, and that catchy Ben Lee song - Catch My Disease - was playing over the PA.
Talk about unnerving. The only reason I was at the shopping centre was to not catch that disease, so my concern was immediately transmissable.
Yet I'd set forth without a facemask as we seem to do these days because, I don't know, I'm not complacent. More fatalistic.
Anyhow, it was straight back on with that thing. And not just because Covid numbers are going up at about the same rate community concern is going down.
I just wanted to hide until a more reassuring vaccination song came on. Perhaps Pat Benatar's Hit me with your best shot.
As Federal Liberal politicians found out last weekend, it's hard to read the omens, even when all the signs are there.
For a long time I wasn't sure Albo was a good omen but as it turned out ... I'm still not sure. Scomo is gone, though, so all praise that miracle.
Half the time you don't realise an omen is an omen until it's omen and out.
Like on the weekend, the car got caught in several merciless rain bombs.
At one stage it felt like a good omen because the car was getting a wash.
Then as we went to drive off we noted a curious flashing light on the dash.
Didn't realise until we were on the road and in the rain and the sun had gone down that the flashing dash had been a bad omen.
For the headlights which had short circuited, probably as a result of the car wash. That's when the mood in the car went about as dark as the road we were now driving on.
Much grasping of the the Jesus bar followed and teeth grinding about whether to pull over or keep flipping the high beam in search of enlightenment. Or failing that, in search of where the road was going.
We ended up limping home by the glow of our parking lights because pulling over in the rain in the middle of nowhere to discuss who was more stressed didn't seem like a good omen for a Sunday night.
Portents, past tense, things got tense.
To be fair, flashing dash lights are probably more a legitimate warning than an omen.
The real omen I realised later occurred hours earlier when I had suggested putting the car under cover before the rain bomb hit. And then didn't bother.
Sometimes you see the omens and don't recognise them and sometimes you just outright ignore them. A bit like supporting the Knights this season.
Or like when you go for a late afternoon surf and the first thing you see as you enter the water is fish leaping out of the water.
Definitely not a great omen, unless you're fishing. And I'll admit it wasn't the most comfortable hour I've spent imitating a wounded fish. But I don't want to go into my relationship with surfing.
Bottom line is I didn't get eaten, except by anxiety and paranoia, so I'm taking that as a good omen and playing on.
