CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

PAST

A 1 in 7.5 billion event took place one Friday evening - unfortunately is was not a GOOD 1 in 7.5 billion event.

The three of us, Angel, Gia and I were at the open air nightclub in the Sea Gardens and Gia asked me if it REALLY hurts to be kicked in the nuts - did it REALLY hurt that bad or were men just putting it on - I assured her that it really DID hurt that much and no, we were not putting it on.

An hour later Angel kicked me in the nuts.

She claimed it was an accident - I pointed out that this “accident” had happened within one hour of me being asked about being kicked in the nuts - coincidence she said.

She was sitting on a concrete table tennis table in the park and I stood in front of her chatting - we had finished off the night and at 4.30 am we had gone to the children’s playground and were playing on the climbing frame and the geodesic dome made of rope etc. I have always been very mature for my age and yet this was a common type of behavior. The week previously we had all piled out of the club and gone and played in the fountain opposite the gardens.

Back to the concrete table tennis table - Angel was sitting on the edge and I was in front of her, talking to her as she swung her legs back and forth absentmindedly and then she absentmindedly kicked me in the nuts!

It was the first time I had been kicked in the nuts since I was 10 years old and in total I had been kicked in the nuts twice in my life - so the odds of me getting kicked in the nuts in any given hour were 192,720:1. Gia asking me about it was probably about the 10th time I’ve ever been asked about being kicked in the nuts by a girl, so the odds of that in any given hour is 38,544:1 so the odds of the two things happening in the same hour are 7,428,199,680:1

SO, I think we can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that Angel kicked me in the nuts deliberately.

Here are some examples of other event probabilities to give you an idea how likely this is:

 

1. Odds of being diagnosed with cancer — 1 in 2 for men, 1 in 3 for women

 

2. Odds of being a victim of a serious crime — 1 in 47 for men, 1 in 52 for women

 

3. Odds of being called to “Come on down!” on The Price is Right — 1 in 36

 

4. Odds of being audited by the IRS — 1 in 100

 

5. Odds of being involved in a drunk driving crash — 2 out of 3

 

6. Odds of being born with 11 fingers or toes — 1 in 500

 

7. Odds of dying from firearm assault — 1 in 358

 

8. Odds of dying in a car accident — 1 in 113

 

9. Odds of winning an Oscar — 1 in 11,500

 

10. Odds of finding a pearl in an oyster — 1 in 12,000

 

11. Odds of being drafted by the NBA — 1 in 6,864,000

 

12. Odds of going blind after laser eye surgery — 1 in 5 million

 

13. Odds of being injured by a toilet — 1 in 10,000

 

14. Odds of dying in an airplane crash — 1 in 9,737

 

15. Odds of getting killed by fireworks — 1 in 340,733

 

16. Odds of being struck and killed by lightening — 1 in 174,426

 

17. Odds of becoming a billionaire — Pretty much none

 

18. Odds of becoming President of the U.S. — 1 in 10 million

 

19. Odds of getting attacked by a shark — 1 in 11.5 million

 

20. Odds of winning $1 million in the McDonald’s Monopoly game — 1 in 513,591,720

 

21. Odds of winning the Powerball jackpot — 1 in 175,223,510

 

Let’s just take № 17, odds of becoming a billionaire - there are 1,426 billionaires on earth and roughly 7.5 billion people on earth SO I am roughly 1,426 times MORE likely to become a billionaire of this book than for Angel to accidentally kick me in the nuts in the same hour Gia asked me how much it hurts to be kicked in the nuts!! SO come on FATE - I challenge you to prove me wrong - make me a billionaire!!!!

Until that happens I’m going to say Angel kicked me in the nuts on purpose - why? No idea, perhaps I had not suffered sufficiently that particular day - in her opinion.