Mud Fence Creations | Connie Delinger

I think most people have a favorite number, or a “lucky” number. It may be the number of kids they have, the number on their sports jersey in high school, or their birthdate (a friend of mine was born on lucky 7-11).

My number has always been three. It represented my little family unit of husband, daughter, and me. I was also raised with three brothers. In my adult years, I have located three separate groups of previously-not-known siblings: two older sisters from my father, two younger sisters from my mother, and an older brother from both parents. Prior to moving to Iowa, I had spent almost all my life in three states: Texas, Arizona, and California. (I avoid counting a miserable 1-1/2 years in Memphis!)

I have decided that I need a new number; it no longer seems like my “lucky” number. As I start my third year in Iowa, I reflect on all the “threes”:

I have lived in three houses in Stanton. The first was a beautiful country rental, the second one I owned for just six months, and the third one I currently own and plan to live in, hopefully uneventfully, for years to come.

Every one of those three houses has had broken water pipe issues. The rental popped a pipe while I was out of state, doing horrendous damage; thus, my first move. The second one had an outdoor spigot freeze over the winter, not to be discovered until four days before escrow closed as I sold it in May. The tiny split in the pipe flooded the basement, doing lots of expensive damage! The third house, my current little Home Sweet Home, had a broken sewer main, which they discovered as they dug the entire yard up to install a sewer clean-out. Fortunately, the break was found one foot before the elevated sidewalk, rather than having to go under the sidewalk to the middle of the street!

I have gone through three cars since my arrival. I purchased the first one six weeks before I came to Iowa. It was only nine months old when the squirrels ate the entire wiring system, impressing the heck out of the mechanic at the dealership. He still talks about the “whole bowl of connectors with no wires!” With little glitches popping up frequently, I traded it in on the same car, just a newer model. I had that car for 16 days when the deer popped up out of the ditch, caving in the whole passenger side. I had been carefully watching his partner, in the ditch ahead of me, as I was going 10-15 miles per hour. As I have since heard several times, “it’s not the one you see, it’s the ones you don’t see.” Car #2 lasted seven months before I was broadsided last summer at 65 mph, totaling the car and getting some injuries from which I am still recovering. It happened within days of the 3-year anniversary of my previous serious car accident (nope, neither were my fault!), in which I tore my shoulder completely loose, and had finally recovered. The car in the first wreck had over 330,000 miles when I traded it in. I was not mentally able to replace Car #2 with a third version of the same car, but I do now have a new car.

In October, my family and I had three injuries in a three-day period.

I tripped and gashed my head open, my daughter decided to learn “Pickleball’ and tore her Achilles tendon, and my nephew was the victim of a hit-and-run driver while jogging, dislocating his shoulder, as well as other injuries.

During the past year, I have experienced three ambulance rides, in three different towns/cities. That’s as many as I have previously had in my entire life.

So, as I celebrate my third birthday in Iowa this week, and start my third year in Stanton, I have decided to trade in my “lucky” number for a new one. I think my new “lucky” number will be 0.00000142.

Conni Delinger lives in Stanton. A business woman, she also is a freelance writer. Her column appears monthly in The Express. You can reach her at mudfencecreations@yahoo.com.