Dwain Walden is editor and publisher of The Moultrie Observer.

There’s an expression called “buzzard luck.” It means you can’t kill anything and you can’t find anything dead. I’ve used it a couple of times in my columns, and later I had to explain it to someone who wasn’t familiar with the slang.

Today as I was scanning the newswires, I saw several examples of what I would call buzzard luck.

It starts in San Diego where a woman was cleared for entry into the United States from Mexico. But she accidentally parked in a lot that is specified for inspections. And wouldn’t you know it, agents found 27 pounds of meth in her car.

Now I’ve occasionally watched a series on television called “Border Wars.” Sometimes agents will pull a vehicle aside and take it apart bolt by bolt.

In this case, the woman just parked in the wrong place at the wrong time after being cleared otherwise.

Then in Cairo, Egypt, a bus driver tried to fool a drug test by using a urine sample from his wife. Guess what? When the results came back, he was told he was pregnant.

In another incident, a couple of crooks did some strategic planning for a shoplifting spree.

A “back to school” shopping event was being sponsored and the crooks thought that clerks would be very busy and wouldn’t notice them stealing stuff. But in their planning of this escapade, their research did not reveal to them that this also was “Shop with a Cop” day. At least 60 police officers showed up to help children pick out school supplies.

This one is very similar to a story a couple of years ago where a couple of bandits rushed into a bar, pulled out their guns and ordered everyone to empty their pockets. It just happened that this was a “cop bar” where off- duty policemen tend to gather. And of course they all emptied their pockets of .38 specials and 9mms. Needless to say the bad guys were outgunned.

Now if you watch some of the reality shows on television, you are going to see all sorts of bad luck. But I have a strong suspicion that a good portion, if not all of it, is choreographed.

Let me give you an example on one of those Alaska shows. This truck driver is going to take his big rig across a frozen lake. Now what possibly could go wrong there? You got it, the ice cracks. Not only does the ice crack, but there is a camera shot from underneath. Wonder how that camera got there?

So this is not really bad luck. It’s just television drama. And have you noticed that something has to go wrong to make these shows exciting?

For instance, you can’t just have some guys cutting down trees and loading up logs. No siree. A cable has to break or a log has to swing around and knock someone up side the head.

In an effort to make it seem real, someone occasionally will curse the camera man and put his hand over the lens. This is a weak effort to validate the drama. All of this would be classified as “fake buzzard luck.”

One more of those: A fellow is riding his snowmobile through the frozen wastelands. And I’m thinking ahead at what bad fortune could befall this person.

Will he break a skid on his snowmobile? Will it stall out and flood the engine? Will he get trash in his carburetor? Will he encounter a grizzly that hasn’t eaten in three weeks?

Well, it was the broken skid. But this guy being a jack of all trades builds sort of a splint to shore up the skid and get him back to his cabin. He could have just rode back with the camera crew, but that wouldn’t have been man versus nature.

Bottom line: We are not supposed to think when we watch  these shows. I could draw an analogy to Congress on this, but I don’t want to get political.

(Email: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com)