Staring at the Sun

Why is it that people seem so eager to share their college admissions horror stories, and less willing to share the good news? It's like everyone I know is following the Fox News Network formula for attention-getting storytelling.

When we were about to buy our first condo in Boston, we heard all sorts of stories of how the market was about to crash, about people who had invested everything in a unit and lost it six months later, and other cautionary tales of woe. When I first became pregnant (yes, here I go again with the pregnancy theme--sorry guys), everyone from my mother to the toll booth collector told me about the two-headed baby, the one-eyed baby, the babies born premature, and babies that never made it to birth at all. All terrible. All sobering. And most of all, all terrifying. Hearing these stories is like stopping to watch a train wreck or gazing directly at the sun--you know that you shouldn't do it, yet somehow can't pull your eyes away.

I used to rail at my father when he would say, philosophically, that life is not always fair. Now, as a grown up, I know that he was right. So if we can't count on fairness in the college admissions process, I guess all we can do is hope for luck. It seems a tenuous lifeline at best.