Bad luck… or is God smiting me?

April 18, 2016

Should we pass on the curse removal details to Telstra? Just a thought...

So this happened…

Bridesmaid-to-be Alex with her fashionable moon boot
Bridesmaid-to-be Alex with her fashionable moon boot

Which is really handy as my good friend’s wedding in NZ is coming soon and a moon boot looks great with formal attire.

I think I’ve irritated God when I accidentally stole a trinket from the Vatican Gift Shop last year. My best friend was getting married in Rome to a hot Italian (is there any other kind?) We went over and toured the city, lived like Romans – it was magical.

SIDEBAR: My luggage went via Dubai on a holiday of its own for a few days with the bridesmaid dress in it, but my luggage always goes missing. Clearly it likes to travel – it is luggage after all. Now nobody will use that bag, they say it’s cursed.

How I accidentally stole from the Vatican Gift Shop

Anywho, we had just seen Il Papa (the Pope) live in concert with 80,000 people in St Peter’s square and then did a tour of the Vatican, which was just incredible. We got to the gift shop at the end and I had a number of things to purchase and being so crowded I waited and waited to pay for my goods. I put the wooden bracelet on my wrist and FORGOT TO PAY FOR IT (I paid for the other things) and I went on my way.

So, I’ve stolen from the Vatican gift shop – yeah…. pretty disappointing. I didn’t do it on purpose. I just forgot. That’s not a mortal sin surely – a venal sin perhaps?

I should also point out that while I was raised a Catholic I’m now what my father refers to as a Submarine Catholic (I only surface when  I’m in trouble) and since then I’ve had some bad luck.

My spate of bad luck

I snapped a tendon in my wrist earlier this year; I was bitten by a small but poisonous spider cleaning the house where we holidayed before Christmas; there’s an ant infestation in the block of townhouses where I live; a striped marsh frog has taken up residence very nearby (it sounds like a game of ping pong and goes all night); and now, I’ve broken some metatarsals in my right foot and have to wear a freakin’ moon boot for the next five weeks.

This was not at all helped by the fact I kept putting Dencorub on it for a week before going to the doctor. Now it’s hardly God smiting me but still, this bad luck has occurred since then.

Making amends and lifting the curse

Once I realised, I did make amends by donating five euro to the local church but still… I don’t really think God is vengeful. Not for something as minor as that.

If I did believe in being cursed though, happily there’s about ten difference services that pop up when you type “Brisbane curse removal” into a search engine (just get past the tree stump removal in the middle of them).

It’s really about the power of belief though.

The curse on the Australian soccer team

Do you remember John Safran having the “curse” on Australia’s soccer team lifted years ago? It’s hilarious! A soccer-mad friend of mine was telling me about it.

Australia was trying to qualify for the 1970 World Cup the team had lost a play-off and was to face Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in Mozambique. Soccer legend Johnny Warren told Safran that after the first game of that series, some of the players heard about a witch doctor in Mozambique who said he could sort things out by putting a curse on the Rhodesians. The team won the next game 3-1 and the witch doctor told the players he wanted $1000 for his services.

But the players didn’t have enough money and said he’d reverse the curse and put it on Australian soccer. The players left the country without paying up and Johnny believed that Australian soccer has been cursed ever since.

When Warren told Safran the story in 2004, Safran decided to go to Africa and do a story about the curse for his show on the ABC John Safran vs God. The witch doctor had died, but Safran found another who could channel him by going to the stadium at which the Rhodesia game had been played 35 years earlier, and then to Telstra Stadium with Johnny Warren. They washed themselves in some clay the witch doctor gave them and the curse was lifted.

The moral of the story

So the moral of the story being, if we believe it then it’s true, isn’t it? Should we pass on the curse removal details to Telstra? Just a thought.

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