The Daily Egyptian is published by the students of SIU at Carbondale. Except during vacations and exam weeks, The Daily Egyptian is published Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and TWThF during the summer semester."

What is luck?

Usually I try to be funny in my columns. I'm not sure if I'm ever successful, but that's beside the point. This is not a funny column.

Just kidding - it is, but the subject matter is about some deep stuff, dude.

You see, I was talking to my friend and the Public Editor of the Daily Egyptian, Andy Horonzy, about being lucky the other day. Andy was shot a few times during a robbery in St. Louis about a month ago, but he's doing fine and his outlook on life is good. Still, he's had a chance to think about existence from an angle most of us have not, or should ever have to.

This was the first time since the incident that I'd really talked with Andy besides some smart-ass comments in get-well cards. We sat at a bar discussing the attack and how lucky he was to be alive. Then he made a good point: He'd be a lot luckier if he didn't get shot at all.

We eventually switched topics, but his comment made me think about what luck is, who really had it and who didn't. Andy was right, he would be a lot luckier if he wasn't shot. But then again, he was lucky the bullets went through his shoulder and legs instead of his torso or head. He was also fortunate he has friends who knew what to do during the frantic moments after the attack.

His attackers were lucky too, because they didn't get caught. According to Andy, the police said the perps probably drove beyond the Mississippi river and the jurisdiction of the St. Louis Police Dept. But I have a feeling sooner or later, their luck will run out.

This week a lot of people thought that I was lucky because I had a chance to meet two fabulous Playboy Playmates (see story on page 16). But when people ask me if I got lucky with them, I say "no." After all, I'm a journalist - and a little chubby.

Anyway, so I was pondering these ideas while admiring the stout shape of my Heineken bottle and before I knew it, the bar was closing. While Andy was following me out of an adjacent liquor store, I heard sort of a slapping sound behind me followed by lurid laughter. I turned around to see my friend's staggered face and a young man running away into a car that quickly peeled off.

When we asked Andy what happened, he told us some guy just came up to him and slapped him in the back of the head, jumped in a car and left. He was okay, but kind of dumbfounded as to what happened. One of our friends reiterated Andy's poor luck.

Before I went to bed that night, I thought about who was really the lucky one - the jackass who sped away in the white jalopy.

The fact that the kid had the audacity and stupidity to do what he did proved that he was the fortunate one. The sorry bastard was never taught that one person's boorish actions can affect someone else in such an enormous way.

If he had, he probably wouldn't try so hard to impress his drunken friends or patronize strangers. Maybe he would fit a little better in the real world- a place that is beautiful, but at times absurd.

After what happened this weekend, I still might not understand what luck is, but now know that it can yield ignorance.

I also know that everyone who knows Andy is lucky to still have him around.

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