Today I lost my third combination lock in two weeks.

I left the first at the gym after gymnastics class, because after I put my lock on the bench, a strange and not particularly attractive Eastern European man came and lay down on the bench next to it; this disconcerted me so much that I completely forgot about the lock, and, for that matter, about my gym shorts and T-shirt, and left the gym without all three.

Properly speaking, I didn't lose the second lock so much as I discarded it. I bought a replacement that turned out to be smaller than the first lock; I took it to the gym to work out and by the time I was done it had wedged itself so firmly in between the lock and the adjacent locker that I very nearly had to get the gym people to cut it off. Needless to say, I got rid of that one in a hurry.

I bought a replacement for the replacement, and for several days everything seemed to be going fine. But then today I left my gym bag on the subway; it contained not only the replacement replacement lock but also my headphones, my shorts, my T-shirt, and the CDs The Best of Debbie Gibson, Faster Than the Speed of Night (Bonnie Tyler), and the single of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive."

Tomorrow I will go buy a replacement replacement replacement lock.

It occurs to me that the universe could be trying to tell me I should be more open, but I'm not listening.