At about 4:30 this afternoon I wondered out loud if it was too late to make my almost daily pilgrimage to the bank. I wasn’t feeling all that confident at the moment and was actually feeling quite sick. Whether it be from my seemingly endless cold, stress or a combination of the two, I don’t know.

I forget what she said next, but essentially Rachel then mentioned that she knew someone who worked at the bank. And you are just telling me this now? Well, she didn’t talk to her too often. But still, you couldn’t have thought to mention that earlier? I asked her if she’d talk to her to at least find out the bank girl’s name and to see if she was with anyone.

It was not good news.

Bank girl is engaged. Worse, almost a cosmic stink bomb, her name is Sara. There is some bad juju there. To say I was disappointed is to be putting it mildly. I’ve been slinking around the house since I got home. I watched a movie about an alcoholic (Factotum) as an upper. I am a fun guy.

But it’s not the end of the world. I’m just disappointed that it took me this long to find a girl I really liked in Manchester and Fate deemed it that she not be available. Sometimes I think it mocks me. For instance, yesterday I got a fortune cookie whose message said: “Luck is coming your way.” Taking my dessert literally, I immediately checked my lotto numbers, only to find not a single one on the list. The next day, this. It seems like I have the same shitty luck I’ve always had. Too bad the cookie didn’t mention when the luck was coming my way.

(Note: I am a little scared by how much faith I put in cheap Chinese paper in baked goods.)

Of course, yesterday I could have actually asked the question I wanted to ask only to find out what I eventually found out anyway, only with much more embarrassment involved. Maybe luck is coming my way.

Not for Rachel though. She almost didn’t want to tell me what she found out, because she knew that my eagerness to pick up deposit slips in a timely manner would then evaporate to what it was before I noticed that a hot girl worked at the bank.