Turks understand statistics better than the rest of us, or at least they seem to have a more practical statistical bias. I say that because today a bird pooped on me, and after I texted my wife the news she quickly responded by congratulating me and then telling me to buy lottery tickets.

My wife is a Turk, born and raised in a small town on the Black Sea coast, and being pooped on by a bird is, for them, a sign of good luck to come: in fact, many of the country’s lottery tickets have images of birds on them for that very reason.