Instant Lemonade

For some reason, every once in a while, things happen to me that seem bad at the start but turn out to be really good. I'm not sure why it happens, but it happens a lot.

Yesterday, I found out that my credit card number had been stolen. Not sure how that happened, but it did. Anyhow, my credit card company got rid of the fraudulent charges and canceled my account. They said that they were going to send me a new card overnight and I'd have it today. Well, the card never came, so I gave the company a call. When I talked to the lady on the phone, she said that the new card had not yet been processed. She said that she would send it overnight and I would have it tomorrow. I got all complain-y and told her that that's what the guy told me yesterday. She ended up passing me off to her supervisor who gave me $25 to shut up.

So because my credit card number got stolen, I now have $25 to spend on more boardgames!

Things like this actually happen to me quite often. Here are two of my all time favorite Lemons-Into-Lemonade stories from college:

I went to college with My-Friend-Who-Lies (MFWL). We both took a Social Psychology class together. Here's how our schedule worked. We'd have basketball class at around noon. After basketball, I had an Econ class and he had nothing. So I'd head of to Econ and he'd hang out at the dorm. After Econ, we had our Social Psyche class. So theoretically, I would be at class and he would meet me there. The problem was that Social Psyche was boring, so I often skipped that class and would head back to the dorm after Econ. MFWL would see me walking back to the dorm. He'd get all mad at me because he didn't like going to class by himself. And then he'd turn around and walk back with me.
Well, right before the final, we found out that class attendance was worth 15% of our grade. So even if we got everything else right, the best we could do was a B! Oops! We actually didn't do too bad. When we got our finals back it turned out that he got a C+ and I got a B- (which makes sense because I am smarter than him).
But when I took a close look at my final, I noticed an error that the grader had made. One of the answers that was marked as wrong was actually correct. So I left a note for the professor explaining the situation, just so that they were aware that the grader had messed up a little.
Well, a few days later, MFWL and I were getting our mail and I got a note from the professor. It said that she was sorry about the error and that she had yelled at the grader and was never going to use them again. And to help fix things, she was going to bump my grade up from a B- to a B. YAY!
Oh, MFWL absolutely LOVED hearing my good news (well, in the same way someone LOVES stepping on a Lego with bare feet). And you know what? To this day, for some reason, he blames ME for messing up his GPA. Weirdo.

Here's my other story (also involving MFWL):

MFWL and I both took a bunch of engineering classes together in college. On our homework problems, we were often required to write out all the questions as well as the answers. Now, MFWL wrote everything out very neatly. I'm sure the graders loved this because it made their jobs much easier. I, on the other hand, did not write neatly. I didn't like doing homework, so I didn't put a lot of effort into it.
One day, I got an assignment back and there was a note from the grader on it. He said that my work was too messy and made me a deal. He said that if I did my homework neatly from now on, then I wouldn't have to write out the questions.
Oh MFWL loved that too! And you know what the best part was? When I got my next assignment back (the one with nicely written answers and no questions), the grader gave me BONUS points for neatness. YAY!


You know, reading through these stories, I think I just realized the secret to my success. Apparently, I cause headaches for other people, so they give me things to make their lives easier.

And all these years, I thought I was just lucky!