I'll take an omen wherever I can get it

I came out and found a duck feather sticking out of the air intake between the hood and windshield of my car the other day. I'm not sure how it got there. Probably some duck flying by just dropped it randomly and it happened to fall in there, but I can not say with complete authority that Forrest Gump wasn't cavorting on the hood of my car like Tawny Kitaen in that Whitesnake video.

When I managed a movie theatre in Sarasota, there was a big, mean stray cat who lived in the neighborhood. Sometimes he would climb up on the hoods of our customers cars and pee in there, to absolutely devastating effect when they turned on their air conditioners. They'd get mad and complain to me about it but it's not like I could do anything. He wasn't an employee. Instead all I could do was advise them to be nice to him and show him respect. I have no idea how he knew to do that but he did. A cat with practical knowledge of how automobile air intake systems work and an endless supply of cat urine is not to be trifled with.

Regardless of how it got there, I figured this feather being stuck in there had to be a benevolent occurrence. There's some old saying about a feather in your cap being a good thing. A feather in your car is only different by one letter, right? The way I'm going right now, I'll take good luck and fortune in any way it's offered. Between that and being lazy (every parking permit I've ever gotten while driving that car is still on the dashboard), I left it there. Of course, it flew out after I drove about a block so I don't know if that's enough to provide any kind of lasting benefit but I guess I'll find out.