Rubber-Gripper Thing from Heaven

The jar wouldn't open.

However innocent-looking, the lid was uncooperative, sealed tight, not budging when turned. I tried harder. I used a towel. I used all my might. But no give.

One of those rubber-gripper things would come in handy right about now, I thought.

In the end, however, my jar saga had a happy ending: the lid did at last succumb (after some gentle banging on the counter). With that, I forgot about my brief battle with the jar of minced ginger. My life proceeded.

Though, I would soon remember that jar, and my silent prayer for a rubber-gripper thingamajig. Fast forward to this evening, approximately twelve hours later.

Once I'd returned home for the day, I had a package in the mail: some vitamin supplements. I opened the envelope, and there were the supplements -- along with something else. A little plastic package with a friendly green label. "Magic Gripper," it read.

One of those rubber-gripper things -- except, in with my shipment of supplements.

Why? How? When I'd placed the order, there'd been no mention of a complimentary rubber-gripper. I guess it might make sense, given that supplements come in bottles and jars, with lids that might get stubborn from time to time. Though, I've ordered from this place dozens of times, for years, and never received any rubber-grippers ...

Until today, some hours after I'd Just Happened to have needed just such a utensil (for the first time in ... months? years?).

Ask and ye shall receive, I thought. Again.

(And here's a fun little footnote: that evening, minutes after discovering my unexpected gift, I went to open another jar ... and its lid wouldn't turn. I employed my new rubber-gripper, and it worked like a charm. Afterward, I laughed madly.)

RIP, Krokinski

Find my sentimental sci-fi short, "RIP, Krokinski," at Unsung Stories, for free!
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The Pituitary Gland

Just what exactly does the pituitary gland do?

I asked myself this yesterday, while shopping for a pituitary glandular supplement that supposedly helps one's pituitary function. I was curious ... but not enough to actually look it up.

However, in less than a day, I would be enlightened on the subject.

A couple weeks ago, I totally randomly found a totally random novel, for free, at the dump: Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Then, yesterday (the same day I'd pondered the pituitary gland), after reading several other books in the meantime, I decided to start reading my dump-novel, as randomly as I'd found the thing, from a selection of over a dozen others (other books in general, not dump-books; I'm not that lucky).

Now skip to today, when, several chapters into Relic, my eyebrows raised: it outlined exactly what the pituitary gland does, in a conversation between two characters.

I'd never before read of this gland's function, and then, after randomly deciding to read a book I've had for weeks (instead of the generous selection of other appealing books at my disposal, I might add), I Just Happened to start this one and, thus, encounter the information I sought -- answering my question, asked less than a day prior.

I call these type of incidents "question-and-answers," for reasons obvious.

* * *

The synchronicity didn't stop there, however.

Remember why I was wondering about the pituitary gland in the first place? Because I was contemplating the purchase of a glandular supplement, made, unglamorously, from the raw glands of pigs and/or cows. So, it could be said that, in buying and ingesting these pills, I would, technically, be dining on the glands of said animals (which are extracted directly from their brains, as it were).

Now, the kicker: the culprit of the Relic book, as it turned out, is a creature that feeds on pituitary glands.

This, just after I'd bought a supplement which, once taken, would render me a pituitary carnivore ...

When I'd never read of such a creature before, ever ...

And I'd had all those other books to choose from, with this one's cover and blurb advertising nothing of pituitary cuisine ...

Just like so many other times, in identical pattern and timing and ...

Etcetera. Etcetera.

There's more to this incident, if you can believe it. But I'll just stop here.