Trouble in 'threes' can mean everything and the kitchen sink

Folklore ... tradition ... experience ... they all tell us crazy things happen in threes.

See, there it happened again.

Celebrity deaths. Major catastrophes. Three Stooges.

They all come with that once, twice, three times it's crazy, Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance regularity.

But I'm here to tell you I'm wishing it stopped at three. For I'm on a crazy-thing streak that rivals the Chicago Cub championship drought and my lottery-playing misfortune.

Think of it this way, if I were a character in a comic strip -- which doesn't seem all that unlikely -- I'd be the one walking around with the cloud above my head.

Let's start with the heat. We've all been complaining about it for weeks, but I have to be the only guy in town who went to the Putnam County Fair to cool off.

After all, we haven't had air conditioning at the Banner Graphic for a couple of weeks now, thanks to an equipment issue that might not get remedied for a couple more. Talk about working up a sweat. Hot off the presses? You betcha.

Actually we're getting quite used to it now, especially since I also haven't had air-conditioning at home for two weeks either (thankfully $193 fixed all that Wednesday). And on top of that, the A/C is out in both cars I own as well.

One's a convertible, so I at least have that going for me. Although leaving the top down all the way to French Lick and back Saturday turned my nose into a gnarly scab after going from sunburned to blistered to peeling. The other vehicle's a Jeep, but after the transmission sounded like it was full of marbles when I put it in gear to drive to Russellville Monday evening, it really doesn't matter that the A/C isn't cooperating.

But we're learning to cope, leaving lights off in the newsroom, using fans more strategically than Sally Rand and making clothing adjustments like wearing my lighter summer ties.

In the meantime, I've probably tripled my iced tea intake at McDonald's. And Thursday things got a little lighter for me as Roxanne Anderson gave me my every-six-months, need-it-or-not haircut.

But that's just the heat. And this is about multiple misery.

The next repairman will be called in to fix my kitchen sink where the garbage disposal has laid waste to the efficiency of the dishwasher, leaking water into the cabinet below and out onto the kitchen floor. One small consolation, the kitchen floor's the cleanest it's been since I've lived there.

And through it all I've endured the itchy, coyote-ugly-want-to-chew-your-arm-off torture of what I first thought were bug bites. But it's clearly a rash that now covers both arms and lower legs and is about to drive me crazier.

It apparently isn't poison ivy, poison oak or thankfully not poison sumac (Internet photos of that are just hideously scary).

So the doctor thinks it's a rash (no, not heat rash), and we're treating it with steroids (just put an asterisk on my record). Prednisone to be exact. Twice a day.

Doc tells me I might have trouble sleeping and the medication might make me cranky and hypersexual. Whoa! What a great combination.

Hey, maybe I'd better take three a day ... you know, just to keep in line with that crazy-in-threes theme.