Taken from one of my recent Facebook updates, and crossposted to ePluribus Media. -- GH
I know that's considered good luck for those in the entertainment industry, but I wince whenever I see that now -- and particularly (perhaps most importantly), any derivative of "if you ever get hit by a bus/car/etc." ...
I was working... as a team leader in the healthcare industry, part of the IT department of a major PPO insurance plan managed care provider, and three days in a row I had three different individuals say to me "If you ever get hit by a bus, we're screwed."
The third time that was said, I felt or imagined some type of major shift in air around me and got a creepy feeling that I was just somehow cast in the role of someone about to be hit by a bus. I quickly shook it off and went about my business...
A few days later, I was hit by my own car as someone tried to help me dislodge it from a parking space during a major snowstorm. I was pinned by the knee between my car's bumper and the bumper of the car in front of it, and my car -- with the newfound traction it had gained that enabled it to surge forward, and the foot of the driver now trapped ~on~ the gas pedal and ~under~ the brake as a result -- pushed me and vehicle I was trapped against up over the sidewalk and over into the neighbor's yard.
Doctors were surprised that I had such minimum damage -- only broke a small bone that a tendon that passes over the knee connects to; they'd thought I should have lost the leg under the knee. As it was, they said I'd walk with a cane for the rest of my life. Fortunately, I was out of the cast a couple weeks early and was walking fine w/o a cane almost immediately thereafter...
...so, I tend to wince whenever I hear terms that bring that memory back to me.