It’s a term my favorite hockey announcer Doc Emrick uses to explain the invisible force that seems to help you in weird ways.   This is my "unseen hand" story:

Brodie frolicking with his buddy Trace

 Yesterday I had to drive Brodie the Devil Dog to Rover Ranch and Spa.   (Rover Ranch is a giant playroom for dogs where Brodie can get his ya-yas out by running around and bothering all the other dogs.)  I loaded Brodie into the back of my SUV, turned on the ignition and saw the dreaded "tire pressure warning" light (which looks nothing like a tire so I always have to look it up in the manual to see what it means).  I got back out of the car and discovered that my tire wasn’t just low, it was dead flat.   This ticked me off because I had just had the car serviced the day before, and it seemed a little too coincidental that it would go flat overnight unless the car dealer had an "unseen hand" in it.

So I unloaded Brodie and reloaded him in my daughter’s car which providentially she had left home from college for the winter.  As I was driving west along Bloomfield Avenue, I saw policemen setting up red cones.  I continued along my way, dropped the dog, and came back.  Approaching the red cones, I discovered the police were checking everyone’s car inspection stickers.  I glanced at my daughter’s, saw with relief that it was current, and was waved through the checkpoint without incident.

When I got home, just out curiosity, I check MY car’s inspection sticker.  Guess what?  It expired in March of 2008.  Whew!  The unseen hand had saved me. 

Note: it cost me $42.00 to have a local repair shop blow my tire back up, and  it was indeed the car dealer’s fault that it had gone flat.  However, I’m not complaining this time because they saved me a ticket.