Is This You? Determining fate with a flip of a coin

How many times during a day could you use a coin to decide your next move? One? Twenty seven? Three hundred and sixteen? More? Of course some decisions are automatic. If you have two or more bathrooms in your house and nature calls, you don’t think, “Which one?” You just choose the closest. Or if nature really calls, you choose the farthest. Please!

No, I’m talking about big decisions. Which cereal? Sugar coated nubs of goodness or fiber? Go with the sugar every time, or see the last thought from the above paragraph! Shoes or boots? Snow is as deep as a well? Boots, your toasty toes will thank you. OK, those two aren’t such all-important life-altering decisions to be made. But what if you tossed a coin at just a select few of your daily decisions? Would fate step in and save your sorry self from making the wrong choices? Well, this is what happened in this house ...

I needed to decide if I should sell a vehicle. A vintage truck that’s in the process of being re-built, refurbished, reconstructed. I had an offer but it was kind of a low-ball offer. I declined it. In the middle of the night, when all things are bigger and badder, I got to thinking I might not get another offer. Then I would be stuck with this vehicle and that’s not something that I could have happen. It’s a project that was started by my other half and he just couldn’t get it finished before he passed away. As you can imagine, I’m not the car builder in this house, so it has to go out into the world and find another home.

After advertising it and word of mouthing it, I finally actually got two offers. Ah, you might be thinking a bidding war. I wish! But one guy fell away as he decided this just wasn’t exactly what he wanted. It was like six to eight inches too short. Really? What is six to eight inches? Uh, moving on ...

Try as I might, I just couldn’t sweet talk the guy into further discussions of buying this beauty. So that left me with just one buyer. But one is all it takes, right?

Discussions continued for a few days and he cooled off. I thought I would let it ride, but then the night came on when things are bigger and badder and I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned. I got up and had tea. Why do people have tea? It just makes you get back up like half an hour later! Never mind.

After what seemed to be an inordinate amount of time — in the middle of the night that equates to about 37 minutes, or the amount of time from tea into tea out! I finally decided to let fate decide. I would flip a coin. Yeah, at 3:46 in the morning that seems to be the best solution to any problem — flip a coin.

So up out of bed and I hunted for a quarter. Found one and had to decide what heads would mean and that would determine what tails would mean. Heads I would sell at the seller’s offered price and tails I would wait and re-advertise and wait a little longer. I flipped the shiny coin and let it drop to the floor. Tink-tink ... where it happily rolled under the refrigerator! I went back to bed.

What exactly was I expecting to happen? What I wanted to happen was it would come up heads and I would feel great about it. After all, in the back of your mind when you flip a coin you have already made up your mind. Haven’t you? If that weren’t true, then the next step, where someone that loses says, “Best two out of three,” would never have been started. We’re all just a little bit too predictable.

Then there’s this notion: Some feel the coin will always come up with the side that’s facing up when you do the flip. I tried that. It’s true ... about half the time. See, everything is kind of 50-50. Either it will or it won’t. I would never make it as an odds-taker in Las Vegas, would I?

Oh, I still have the truck. I haven’t retrieved the quarter yet. Not going under that fridge without a whip and a chair — but when I do I’m going with whatever it came up as. Unless I decide to do best two out of three.

Trina lives in Eureka, Nevada. Share with her at itybytrina@yahoo.com. Really!