Triple Crown

Yesterday, I left a bit of a cliffhanger. I rather went on for awhile about a coincidence I categorized as a "Triple Crown with a throwback plus."  I talked about how coincidences should, for evaluative purposes, have names like that, "Triple Crown", or a "Double with a rimshot" for instance. These would be like the names they have for Olympic dives. I introduced and defined some coincidence names for you, and then, when it came time to tell you my Triple Crown with a throwback plus I left it hanging. Actually, I left it pretending like you weren't interested. But I was just kidding. I knew you'd be terribly interested. How could you not be? It's a freaking Triple Crown! No one cares tons about a throwback, but a Triple Crown? Irresistible!

Hmm? What's that? What exactly is a Triple Crown? Well, simply put, it is when you have three things linked in a circle by coincidence. Two isn't hard, but the odds numbers can get a little astronomical to bring in that third piece of coincidence, making it rather rare, much like a horse winning the Triple Crown, or a baseball player leading the league in RBIs, HRs and BA. Say you're driving with a friend in your new car and you notice the odometer is rolling over to 1200 miles. You glance at the digital clock. It reads 12:00, midnight. Traditionally this would be called a standard double, but it's a very nice double, sometimes casually known as "A Clean Double". So you turn to your friend to tell them to check it out. They turn their head towards you and the neon light bouncing around from the bar you're passing shines numbers on your friend's forehead. The bar is "Bar 1200" and 1200 is in red letters on your friends forehead, at midnight, while your odometer reads 1200 miles. That, that is a Triple Crown! Amazing! Actually that would be a "Triple Crown with a chaser" the chaser being that the triple crown is being made with a forehead (crown...forehead, it's not a great chaser, but still...).

So, first, to all of you who wrote me letters, left pleading comments, and signed petitions urging me to relent and describe my Triple Crown, I am sorry I caused distress (well, I mean if anyone did any of those things and I actually did cause distress.  People don't much do those sorts of things with the letter writing and what all around this blog usually. At best, every couple days there's a comment or two, which is cheering in an Eeyore sort of way. And then, just to get complicated about it, I am writing this before the first post actually goes live so this is all speculation at this point. I don't know if there was a massive letter writing campaign or not at this point- I am pretty sure there wasn't, but like to imagine it for fun and then apologize for the imaginary distress I caused).

Anyway, finally, regarding this Triple Crown with a throwback plus thing. I think I built it up to much. Now I'm all nervous. But I'll not leave you hanging again. Let me just quietly gather myself here.

Okay, I'm ready.

I was processing holds. This means I was running books, from a bin full of items on hold for people, over our RFID reader pads in order to generate a slip for each book. These slips are mainly a 3-letter code based on the first two letters of the last name of the requester, followed by the first letter of the first name (i. e. Feldenstein Calypso is CAF). This is then filed alphabetically and one can go get their requests off the requests shelf at their leisure (sorry about all this explanation, it's not very fun to explain to people in person either, and often they wander off before I can finish. Then they have to come back because they have no idea where to look for their holds. I'm glad you've managed to hang on). While processing holds I am able to listen to music on the computer and I was listening to my favorite song these days, The White Stripe's cover of Bob Dylan's One More Cup of Coffee.  I run a slip for a book and the 3-letter name code is "CUP", pretty neat. "CUP" while One More Cup of Coffee was playing. But what was the book on hold? Latte Trouble, (a coffeehouse mystery!) by Cleo Coyle. Yes, "coffee" does not appear in the title, but "Latte"? And the word coffee is on the cover like 3 times. Yep, cup, coffee (latte), one more cup of coffee, a real live Triple Crown! I know, I can hear your jaw drop.

Oh, no, that might not have been your jaw dropping. I think that might have just been me bumping my knee. This swivel chair I'm in is dangerous.

The throwback plus? Oh, that was because my whole coincidence discussion started with Bob Dylan just a few days ago. Yeah, that's not much, but it sounds good and I'll point out that because I had two posts last week about coffee I could have called it a "Double throwback plus", but I modestly restrained myself.

So what do you think? Yeah, I kind of like the 1200 one better in story form, mostly because you can make it more dramatic and simplify all the context. I'm pretty sure really good coincidences are easier to make up like that than just have happen. But the real life happening of something like a triple crown is hard to beat. I mean cup, latte, cup of coffee. No?