"But I was stuck there [Earth] for fifteen years!" [said Ford.]
"Well, I didn't know that, did I?" [said Zaphod.]
"Looking about, you know."
"He gate-crashed a party," said Arthur, trembling with anger, "a fancy dress party . . ."
"It would have to be, wouldn't it?" said Ford.
"At this party," persisted Arthur, "was a girl . . . oh, well, look, it doesn't matter now. The whole place has gone up in smoke anyway . . ."
"I wish you'd stop sulking about that bloody planet," said Ford. "Who was the lady?"
"Oh, just somebody. Well all right. I wasn't doing very well with her. I'd been trying all evening. Hell, she was something though. Beautiful, charming, devastatingly intelligent, at last I'd got her to myself for a bit and was plying her with a bit of talk when this friend of yours barges up and says, 'Hey, doll, is this guy boring you? Why don't you talk to me instead. I'm from a different planet.' I never saw her again."
"Zaphod?" said Ford.
"Yes," said Arthur, glaring at him and trying not to feel foolish. "He only had the two arms and the one head and he called himself Phil, but . . ."
"But you must admit he did turn out to be from another planet," said Trillian, wandering into sight at the other end of the bridge. She gave Arthur a pleasant smile which settled on him like a ton of bricks and then turned her attention to the ship's controls again.
There was silence for a few seconds, and out of the scrambled mess of Arthur's brain crawled some words.
"Tricia McMillan?" he said. "What are you doing here?
"Same as you," she said. "I hitched a lift. After all, with a degree in math and another in astrophysics what else was there to do? It was either that or the dole queue again on Monday."
"Infinity minus one," chattered the computer. "Improbability sum now complete."
Zaphod looked about him, at Ford, at Arthur, and then at Trillian.
"Trillian," he said, "is this sort of thing going to happen every time we use the Improbability Drive?"
"Very probably, I'm afraid," she said.
Improbability drives the story of Arthur Dent. Currently, he's on a stolen ship powered by Improbability, surrounded by two aliens from Betelgeuse Five and a girl he struck out with at a dinner party on the planet Earth, which has just been blown into oblivion by the Vogons. If none of that makes sense to you, that's okay. The probability of you understanding that synopsis without being familiar with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is practically zero.
Improbability has been very present in my life since about two months ago. (If you don't believe, go back to previous posts and review the evidence.) Tonight, my wife and I will be attending an academic awards ceremony for graduating seniors at my daughter's school. In exactly 21 days, my daughter will be in a cap and gown, getting ready to receive her high school diploma. And in 22 days, I will be the father of a high school graduate.
All of that seems fairly improbable to me. I can't believe that tall, graceful, beautiful young woman living in the attic bedroom of my house is the baby girl that I carried home from the hospital 18 years ago. So much has happened in my life during those 18 years, both good and bad. Abundance and loss. It's kind of exhausting simply thinking about all of it.
The deck seemed stacked against the success of our family. Mental illness and addiction. Separation. And yet, here I am, almost 25 years into my marriage, almost 20 years of being a father, still struggling, still loving my wife and children, despite the improbability of it all. That, for me, is a miracle to be celebrated.
Of course, Vogons could show up tomorrow to incinerate the planet, but, for now, I take comfort in defying the odds.
Saint Marty will always believe in the improbable power of love
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