Do I Have a Lucky Face?

For the past three weeks, I have been feeling really lucky, and not just because I get to live in Paris and write blogs all day long. I know that I am lucky because a random guy on the street chased me down to say, “Excuse me. Do you know that you have a lucky face?”

Oh do I?

This was a few weeks ago. I had taken a long walk that took me from the Bastille, along the Seine, all the way to the Champs Elysées, where the Tour de France had just ended that afternoon. The Champs Elysées was still buzzing with people and shards of glass and the sweet smell of Carlos Sastre’s victory, so I ducked onto swanky Avenue Montaigne to avoid the madness.

But even greater madness awaited me! As I ambled down the street, gawking at very pretty clothes that I will never own, I was approached by a semi-sketchy guy. (This is a daily occurrence for me in Paris… no need for alarm…). But his status leapt from “semi” to “completely” sketchy when he told me I had a “lucky face.”

He was speaking English, but surely something had been lost in translation. It was the creepiest compliment (insult?) I had ever received—from a stranger at least. I think he wanted to keep chatting, but my fight-or-flight instincts were beginning to kick in and, being a coward by nature, I fled. Past Dior, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, all the way to the Plaza Athenée… safe. Safe and lucky!

The other night, I was walking past the famed spot on Avenue Montaigne, and I recounted my story to a friend. Lo and behold, the exact same thing had happened to her in the exact same spot. Impossible! Paris only has room for one lucky face, and it’s mine!

But no. Apparently the world is crawling with lucky faces. Multiple Google searches have taught me that the “lucky face” line is as old as time itself. Apparently it’s some fortune-telling gimmick that dudes on the street use to lure you in so they can make predictions about your life and then ask you for money.

I’m not big on having my fortune told, but I am big on having “lucky” body parts. And I look forward to a lifetime of attributing all good luck to my face.

Person A: “Thank God we didn’t miss the plane.”
Me: “Why don’t you just thank my face?”
Person B: “It looks like the weather is going to clear up for Oliver’s wedding!”
Me: “Well then Oliver is forever indebted to my face.”

And so on and so forth… for the rest of my life.

Tory Hoen's blog, A Moveable Beast, appears regularly on Gradspot. Based on several reports, we're willing to entertain the notion that her face is literally lucky. As long as she doesn't start filing stories like these.