A long time ago, in my second year of college (well, it’s long enough), I had creeped myself out reading a horror novel about a supernatural murderer that reached its victims through chain letters. And then I got a really strange chain letter via email that seemed identical to the one in the novel and this email did not behave like a regular email, either. So I freaked out, called Grace (who was attending UC Berkeley in northern California), and then decided while on the phone with her to simply delete the email, altho it may be cursing me as I do that, in order to stop the chain with me and not let bad karma or whatever get to my friends. (The fact that I still refuse to pass on threatening chain letters to this day dates back to that instance.) I don’t think Grace was ever superstitious, and she certainly didn’t read the horror novel I had then just read, but the fact that I was distraught was enough for her. She called up the girl who sent me the chain letter, an acquaintance from high school (I don’t even know how Grace got her number), and chewed her out. I didn’t know about that phone call until a year or two later when I had occasion to talk to that girl, who told me what Grace had done for me. It had never occurred to the girl that, even if she herself weren’t passing it on due to superstitious fear for her own selfish well-being (which she was), that she may be passing it on to someone who IS superstitious. Every time I get an evil chain letter and make the same decision to delete it lest I pass it on to someone superstitious, I think of Grace and that incident.

I keep my plastic bags, twisted into its own knot, in the lowest drawer next to my kitchen stove for use later to line my trash cans or to bag things in. This morning, I opened my plastic bag drawer in the kitchen and pulled out a white and royal blue plastic bag that I didn’t recognize. I had bypassed a white grocery bag with Chinese lettering for that blue bag. I dumped an apple, an avocado, and a Chinese veggie bun into the bag and brought it to work with me. I ate the apple during an afternoon break in our trial, and 5 minutes before beginning this entry, I took the still unripe avocado out and placed it on my desk. Then I removed the bun. (I had lunch with Mr. W and a friend of his today so I didn’t eat my stuff.) When I took the bun out, my hand on the outside of the bag felt something else in the bag. I looked in and saw a receipt. I looked at the bag. “WORLD Duty Free”, it reads in white lettering. Did I buy something duty-free at an airport recently? I had bought some salt water taffy waiting to come back from Florida last month. (Geez, was it only last month?!) I figured that’s where I got the bag. The receipt, however, reads:

WORLD DUTY FREE EUROPE LTD
130 Wilton Road London SW1V LQ

…WORLD DUTY FREE HEATHROW TERMINAL 3

And then it shows the purchase. Two Sheridans Cream, 100C, for 14.30 pounds. I have never been to Europe. But I did receive a bottle of Sheridans liquor for Christmas a few years ago… from Grace. I had introduced her to this vertically-split bottle of coffee liquor and cream liquor when I visited her in Berkeley our junior year of college. I got her a small bottle (she had recently turned 21), showed her at her studio apartment how to pour it over the rocks with the bottle completely inverted so that the bottle pours precisely a 2/3 coffee, 1/3 cream floater drink. I remember her lying on her back on her bed, 15 minutes after downing this drink (she loved coffee-flavored stuff), and saying, “Oh man, I am so buzzed.” I remember laughing at her. She remembered, at 12:38:50 on November 1, 2003 according to the receipt, that Sheridan’s remained one of my favorite liquors. I didn’t see her that Christmas, she was in New York going through some chemo treatment and her doctor wouldn’t let her travel. Her sister, who had just returned from visiting Grace in New York, had met me at a Starbucks in Brea and handed me this blue bag, Grace’s Christmas present to me. Inside was a bath kit nestled in a porcelain bowl of sorts, with yellow roses (my favorite color and my birthflower) painted on the porcelain. This bowl was next to a large bottle of Sheridans Liquor. Grace’s sister and I discussed Grace’s wedding and bridal shower plans, and then we parted ways. I called Grace to thank her for the presents. “Where’d you find the Sheridans?” I asked her. “I’ve been looking for it everywhere but I guess no one carries it around here anymore.” She said, “Actually, I saw it in London!” I think she may have told me that she bought a bottle for herself, too.

It’s amazing the things we take for granted, and the things we keep in our hearts. And the things we didn’t know we kept, but will treasure forever now due to unfortunate circumstances. This crumpled receipt will be tucked under my transparent desk blotter at work. Call me superstitious, but I believe Grace is telling me that she’s still with me.