Serendipity, Coming Home, Through the Roof

YOU JUST NEVER KNOW. Murphy's Law strikes again. Whatever can happen, will happen. In Naples, Florida, on an ordinary pleasant day, a family home was suddenly, rudely interrupted when a large piece of metal came crashing through the roof,at a very high velocity. Precisely how large the piece was, how fast it traveled, how deep into the abode, whether it penetrated the floor and foundation as well as the roof; these details were not included in what was an incidental time filling last mimute end of the broadcast news item on a National Public Radio hourly news cast. Nor was it mentioned whether the family was home at the time. Of course you hope it wasn't, although one must admit that had they been, the story would have been even "better", assuming no injuries to anyone, which you cannot. What you can assume, however, is that the impact made one helluva big bang, a real big noise, but unless somebody was home to hear it, it didn't. What we do know for sure, since NASA stepped up (not that they had any other choice) and acknowledged the part it played in the adventure, is that it came from a certain orbiting space vehicle, was a certain part of that satellite vehicle, and that it had been deliberately ejected from said orbiting vehicle, for the purpose, presumably, of replacing it with an upgrade. The plan, according to NASA, was for the old discarded piece of junk to simply burn up in the atmosphere, and to leave nothing behind but a nice long streak in the sky, pro tem, after the fashion of an meteor. Only, that didn't happen. Not only did it fail to burn up while in flight, it made it all the way to the ground, to the chagrin of an innocent family, simply minding its own business. Chagrin might well be an accurate descriptor of the current state of mind of NASA, insofar as an organization can achieve states of mind, owing to the fact that the fmaily and its attorney made no mistake about it, they intend to sue the space agency, for damages to the home, for emotional trauma, and, quite likely, for anything else the aforementioned attorney can concoct in all his or her legal expertise and chicanery. Since NASA has already essentially admitted culpability, it seems evident that some sort of out of court settlement will be offered, negotitated, and arrived at. For all we know, this average American family has just hit the proverbial jackpot, and might very well end up happily ensconced in a new, improved, larger, lovely mansion style homestead, replete with manicured lawns, stables, heated salt water swimming pool, tennis court, and numerous other amenities, including, somewhat ironically, a television satellite dish, and one for the internet, to boot. Again, as we have been frequently heretofore, we are reminded of the quirky, serendipitous nature of life, wherein surprises are constant, anything which can indeed happen will happen, in the fullness of time. All it takes it a bit of an unpredicted spin rate, trajectory, and a surprisingly, unexpectedly friction free fall of a metal object which heats up on its mad gravitional rush to the Earth's surface far less extremely than planned by thermodyamic law and physicists, and, well, the rest, as we say, is history. The sort of thing that won't happen agian in a million years. Or will it? The high skies around Earth are full and filling up fast with space debris, as nation after nation redundantly shoots up more rockets and orbiting satellites than you can shake a stick at, to the extent that the international community now recognizes space debris as a definite hazard, to space stations, astronauts, and, we now know, average all American families going about their business in Flordia, bothering nobody. All this shot up stuff inevitably wears out and falls back towards Earth, so, a quick heads up; keep your heads up, and by all means, have your home owner's insurance handy, and the phone number of a good, reliable roofing company.