The Writers' Circle

Julie Nelson had not been having a good week.
Her boyfriend of two years had gone off on a "Boy's mini vacation" with his buddies to Vegas, and before he had left, he had drained the bulk of their savings from the joint bank account without telling Julie that he was doing it. She had only realised what he had done when she checked the balance at the cash dispenser on Monday night.
By Tuesday night all of his clothes and belongings were in a pile outside of her apartment and the locks had been changed on the door.
On Wednesday she had been stopped by the cops and fined ninety bucks for having a defective tail light, and on Thursday just to add to her misery, she had been fired from her job at the department store. Admittedly, that had been her own fault. She shouldn't of called the customer who was trying to get a refund for the cd player that her dog had chewed a "Dumb bitch" but Julie had been stressed out at the time, and she thought that the sacking had been a bit harsh.

With no job to go to on Friday, she went for a walk down-town instead.
As she walked along with no-where particular to go, she ran through the events of the week in her head. She would often do this if she was troubled, or had a problem. She would mentally talk to herself. The conversation that she had with herself that Friday went something like this:

Self: "OK dumb-ass, no job, no prospects, no money, no boyfriend. Pretty good going for a week huh"

Me: "Yeah right. Thanks for the encouragement"

 "Well what are you going to do about it"

 "How the hell do I know! You tell me"

 "Well you better do something sweetie, or in a couple of months you're gonna be without an apartment as well"

 "Great, that really helps"

 "Well it's not all your own fault. You've just been unlucky, that's all"

 "Still doesn't help"

 "What you need is a bunch of good luck to fall on you" 

"Yeah right, nice if I knew where to find some"

It was then that the idea struck her. A switch somewhere in Julie's brain had made a connection, and from seemingly nowhere she had a solution to her problems.
What was it that people wanted most.-They wanted to be lucky.
They wanted to win the lottery, get the partner of their dreams, get a great job, dodge illness and disease, become famous.
She would sell luck.
She was so taken by the idea that she rushed over to her friend's apartment to tell her.
When she arrived there, her friend Stacy was busy pressing her work uniform before going out to her shift at one of the local fast-food joints.

"Stacy, Stacy listen, I've just had a great idea"

Stacy groaned inwardly, and went into the kitchen to make some coffee.

"If it's got any-thing to do with that ass-hole that you lived with for two years, then I'm not interested" She said.

"No, No, it's a business idea"

Stacy rolled her eyes and started rummaging in the cupboard for the sugar bowl. Julie followed her into the kitchen.

"Stacy, this one's brilliant; Honestly"

"OK then Gloria Vanderbilt, hit me with it, but make it quick. I've got to be in work in twenty minutes"

"I'm going to sell luck. How good is that! I don't have to pay for it or buy it from any-where and every-one wants it"

"You're nuts Julie. You haven't thought any of this out have you. Every week you come up with crazy stuff like this. Remember when you told me that you were going to make a fortune by running Spanish dance classes. Nothing came of that did it." 
Stacy gave her friend a pitying look.
"Listen Julie. I gotta get to work. There's some cookies in the jar there. Help yourself and pull the door behind you when you go. 
I'll ask my boss if he needs some-one to clear tables"

Despite her friend's pessimism, Julie went ahead with her idea.
She found a small vacant shop that was wedged between a fancy goods store and a tire shop in a run down part of town and managed to get the owner to waive the deposit. She painted the walls a deep red, and hauled her sofa, a desk and two chairs down from her apartment.
Above the door she hung a sign that read: The Good Luck Shop.
On the first day she did not have a single customer.
However, on the second day John Riley, the owner of the tire shop called by to say hello to his new neighbor.
 He asked her what she was selling. 
When Julie told him that she was selling luck, he shook his head and laughed. He figured that she wouldn't last a week.
Later that day when a customer complained to John about the cost of his tires, John said jokingly that he should try next door, he might have more luck there. The man had to wait for his tires to be fitted, and so he wandered into Julie's shop to waste some time before he got his car back. John Riley had seen the man go in, and as a private joke had given the guy a ten dollar discount when he came back for his car.
"Told you that you'd be lucky" He said.

Julie had realized that selling something as intangible as luck, had an element of risk, and so she didn't actually charge people anything. What she did was to hold her customer's hand, look into their eyes and tell them that she had given them her luck.
She could not say how lucky her customer would be, or even when the luck would occur, only that it would surely come, and when it happened, the customer could return and give some of the luck back to Julie in the way of folding cash.
Her first payment was three dollars from the guy with the new set of tires.

Over the next few weeks, people started to drift into the good luck shop, and Julie built up a regular clientèle of old ladies whose cats had wandered off for a day or two, and teenagers who needed the courage to ask someone for a date. She wasn't making a fortune, but she was getting by.

One day she had a visit from a local newspaper reporter. He had heard about the good luck shop, and as it was a quiet week, he thought that he would do a human interest story to pad the paper out a bit. The article duly appeared, and the following week a few extra customers found their way to Julie's shop.
The story was picked up by a stringer, and a short while later, a re-hash of the original story appeared in the inside pages of a regional weekly. The idea of somewhere that you could visit to get good luck seemed to amuse people.
A few weeks after that, Julie received a phone call from a television researcher. The caller worked for a programme entitled Wonderful World A family magazine type show hosted by the much loved TV presenter Cindy Ferling.
"Would it be possible" The researcher asked, "To come down and do a piece about Julie and her shop for the programme"
"Would it be possible!" Wonderful World had an audience of millions, and was shown nationally.
With free publicity like that Julie would be swamped with customers. If all went well, she might even be able to franchise the good luck shop idea. It was not inconceivable that within 12 months she might be a millionaire. She agreed at once, and it was arrainged that Cindy Ferling and the film crew would turn up the following week.

The TV crew duly arrived, and set up cameras, and lights and microphones both inside and outside of the shop. Cindy Ferling, with her big hair, white teeth and professional smile went through the prepared scrip with Julie.
There would be a piece to camera, followed by a short interview, then a shot of Cindy  exiting the shop followed by a wrap up piece to camera.
Wonderful World had also pre-recorded two actresses in their TV studio whom Julie had never seen.
The actresses had apparently given glowing testimonials as to how lucky they had been since visiting the shop. These clips would be cut into the film later.
It was all a bit confusing to Julie, but it seemed to be going very well, right up to the point where Cindy exited the shop and was hit by a passing number 92 bus.

That night Julie called Stacy.

"Stacy, you know that you said that your boss might have a job going clearing tables. Well......"