The Humbling Pinhole (A Brief Tutorial of Nolan Luck)

Nolan luck: (noun) A phenomenon associated to Nolan heritage that clearly demands that seemingly easy tasks must prove to be nearly impossible, for no apparent reason.

To truly understand Nolan luck I must start by describing it's impact to my Dad. A few descriptive terms for Dad would be: funny, cynical, smart, a tad obsessive, level-headed, extremely patient, and extremely impatient. I say patient and impatient because like me, Dad is a little bit easy listening and a little bit rock and roll. I can deal with tedious things all day long, but I could also blow a blood vessel over a stupid, oblivious woman taking up more than half the aisle at Wal-mart. "HALF THE AISLE LADY, THAT'S ALL YOU GET!!!!

But most importantly, the trait that my Dad unknowingly passed to me was the ability to laugh at myself. It really is an incredible mechanism that allows me to face the ridiculous situations life presents without the top of my head popping off. Never take yourself too seriously. Nothing dooms you more than a perceived failure to measure up. The game never ends as long as you keep playing.

To really drive this point home, I'm going to do one of my favorite things: Tell old stories. Now, some of these stories may seem exaggerated or ridiculous. This is because of one of two reasons. 1. Nolan Luck puts you in ridiculous situations. 2. Some of these stories are from my childhood, and I cannot be held accountable for my imagination.

In high school, my world pretty much revolved around music. Band, jazz band, showchoir, madrigals....you get the point. I took it seriously.  Too seriously. Nothing, on a grand scale, is less important than a high school choir performance. Now, I'm not saying that it was not worth striving for, but mistakes happen. Well, during my junior year we had a review-type show worked out that would feature the showchoir, but would also include performances from the girls ensemble, the boys ensemble, and the madrigals. Now, for those of you not familiar with a madrigals group, it's basically a small, mixed ensemble that sing old songs while dressed in character. Yep, nothing cooler than the digs of the dark ages. It's like I was trying to repel the female sex.

One of the hardest things about a review show that changes sets, costumes, and groupings quickly is the ability to hit your mark as fast as possible. Song ends, curtains close, sprint off stage, have next costume ready at hand, change quickly, spring back on stage, curtains open. Not a lot of room for mistakes. So this particular year, my madrigals costume was basically a heavy black robe with a rope belt. GENIUS! This is basically the easiest thing to change into quickly.

On the night of the performance, things were going so well. I was dancing well, singing well, and pretty much feeling like I was on top of my tiny world. Now comes the humbling part. The crowd could probably feel the impending rush of Nolan luck woosh through the room like a hurricane. A showchoir song ends, and the curtains closed as I sprinted to the boys' side of the stage while ripping clothes off. As I picked up my robe, though, my brain scrambled and I was basically looking at a giant blanket. I could not, for the life of me figure out how to get the blasted thing on. Panic, cold sweats, and shaking hands also doomed this little operation. A couple of guys rushed to my aid to help me sort this out as I'm standing there in a v-neck t-shirt and a pair of tightie-whities that had been died a dull blue, due to poor clothes separating technique during the washing process.

I finally pull the robe over my head just as the stage hand, on the other side of the stage, unknowingly begins opening the curtain. I rush to formation without my handy dandy rope belt, robe completely open on the backside. We sing our song to a crowd that had no idea how fortunate they were to only see the front of our costumes. To my credit, I held it together well, considering my big blue butt was shining to everyone backstage.

Epilogue: Just to ensure that I would never forget that humbling experience, my Mother framed a copy of the program along with the now infamous blue underwear and presented it to me as a Christmas gift that year. I quickly switched to boxers....

Story two is a perfect storm of Nolan luck, in that the confluence of two Nolan's exponentially increased the negative impact of a situation. We traveled on vacation for two weeks every summer. It started small by taking a car-based road trip to Canada, via Yellowstone National Park. It quickly expanded to motor-home based excursions all over the country. Now, for those of you not familiar with motor-home ownership, I'll see if I can sum it up for you. It's like taking every modern and familiar home comfort that you have, shrinking it, throwing it on an over-sized chasis, and watching it all vibrate to pieces while driving down the road. Yep.  That, plus sewage hoses about sums it up. Still, I loved it. I mean really loved it. It was like a strange adventure where I got to sleep a lot during the day.

One summer we hit the Mid-West. I was probably 13. It was an amazing trip. Nothing says adventure like surfing on top of the motor-home, in a rain storm in downtown Memphis, making sure that the telephone lines would clear our A/C unit. The entire trip was awesome, until IT happened. On our way home, coming through Missouri, I woke up one morning from my couch based bed and stepped right onto wet carpet. Uh-oh. Doom overtook me because I knew what was coming next.

Nolan's apparently hate knuckles. We are constantly trying to destroy them, so we must hate them, right? Neither my Dad, nor I can doing anything mechanical without attempting to shave off a knuckle. It's ridiculous how I can grab a wrench or a pair of pliers and IMMEDIATELY smash my hand on something. Anyhow, I stared sadly at my poor knuckles, and reported to Dad that we had a problem.

Now when I say wet carpet, do not confuse that with "someone must've spilled a soda." Negative. More like, "oops someone must've left the sunroof open during monsoon season." One problem.  Our hip little motor-home was not hip enough to have a sunroof. We quickly assessed the situation and realized that the hot water heater, underneath the couch, must have a leak. We couldn't see the leak, or much of anything else under the couch. It would have to be removed. For those of you not familiar with a motor-home hot water heater, it resembles a propane tank for a gas grill, turned sideways and bolted into the motor-home through a square hole cut into the side of the frame. It's only capable of operating if it's seated into the frame, because the wires wouldn't reach otherwise.

Now, the kind folks at Holiday Rambler have really figured out how to build a nice motor-home. Apparently, the trick is to use HUNDREDS of the tiniest screws possible to affix parts together. Once those screws are tight, completely cover them in a sealant reminiscent of washing a pack of bubble yum in the pocket of a pair of blue jeans. The stuff was impossible to get off. So first thing that morning, before the heat got too bad, we pulled the thing out and searched for the leak. At this point, the process is very instructional in nature. Dad is showing me how to remove the gummy sealant without your hands sticking to everything, a la Clark Griswald, and how to find the leak using dish soap. My face beamed in admiration. His chest puffed with manliness. We then trekked to the local hardware store and Dad was guided to some really good leak stopping sealant that was sure to fix all of our problems.

We returned triumphant to the park, briefed Mom on the wonders of our newly purchased product, and began refilling the tank. By mid-morning we had narrowly averted crisis, and would focus our attention back to having fun! Wrong answer. Twenty minutes later, the monsoon returned. Thus began a demonic cycle of tank removal, sealant, refill, re-spill. All that warm-hearted Dad/Son crap was out the window. This was war. We were being barraged by tiny screws, gummy sealant, 100 degree heat, and mosquitoes. This lasted ALL day long. We must've removed that tank at least six times. We were confused, Mom was confused, the guy at the hardware store was confused, but mostly our poor carpet was confused. Finally, Dad admitted to defeat. Nolan luck was too strong. A three gallon water heater, and a pin hole had reduced us to sun burned, knuckle-less, piles of inhuman exhaustion.

The next day, Dad ponied up the cash to buy a shiny new water heater. We installed that thing with extreme caution. We looked like we were transporting fissile material. There was NO WAY we were going through that again. To this day, it only takes the mere mention of a water heater to cause my Dad and I to shutter at the lesson we learned.

Sometimes it only takes a pin hole to humble the proudest of champions. I take comfort in the fact that Nolan luck exist. Some things will come easy in life. Just know that there will always be a metaphorical lady in the aisle. Don't freak out. Just stare and marvel at the unreasonable amount of salad dressing flavors till she finds her way.

And, always cover your big blue butt.