The following version of this short story was used to create the guide: Schweblin, Samanta. "An Unlucky Man." The Best Short Stories 2022: The O. Henry Prize Winners. Vintage Anchor Publishing, 2022.

Samanta Schweblin's short story "An Unlucky Man" is set on a single day and told from the unnamed protagonist's first person point of view. Tracing the events of the eight-year-old narrator's birthday, the short story's conflicts and stakes are derived from the narrator's youthful consciousness. Schweblin employs a linear narrative structure and the past tense throughout.

On the first person narrator's eighth birthday, her little sister Abi drank a cup of bleach. Because Abi was always trying to steal the attention, the narrator felt no sympathy for her three-year-old sister. She simply watched as Mom panicked. Mom shook Abi, poured her some milk, dumped it in the sink, called Dad, and poured some more milk.

When Dad arrived, he did not come into the house. Instead, he sat in the car, beeping his horn furiously. Mom and Abi raced outside. The narrator was overwhelmed and stood there unsure what to do. Her parents insisted she close the doors and hurry up.

The family got caught in traffic only 10 blocks from the house. Unable to move through the cars, Dad instructed the narrator to give him her underwear. The narrator was shocked and confused. She only had white underpants and was still wearing her uniform from school. Her mother screamed at her to obey her father. After she did so, Dad waved the underpants outside the car window like a flag. An ambulance noticed what was happening and led them to the hospital.

Mom raced Abi into the emergency room. Dad told the narrator to hurry up. She was trying to find her underpants, but he did not return them or realize why she was moving so slowly. Inside, Dad told the narrator to sit in the waiting room while he joined Mom and Abi.

The narrator sat in the plastic chair, feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed. She could feel her bottom on the seat, and had no idea how to resolve her situation. Then a man sat next to her. Although she answered his questions politely, she was unsure if she should trust him because he was a stranger. However, she soon decided to tell him that it was her birthday and that she did not have her underpants on. The man was sympathetic, and immediately realized the injustice of her situation. The narrator was pleased.

Therefore, when the man said he could help her, the narrator trusted him. They left the hospital together and walked to a nearby shopping center. Inside a clothing store, the man helped the narrator choose a pair of new black underwear with little hearts on them. Although she knew he logically could not accompany her into the dressing room, the narrator felt scared and asked for the man's name. He initially refused, insisting that he was cursed to never say his name again lest he die. When the narrator started to cry, however, he wrote his name on a piece of paper for her.

The narrator and the man left the shopping center without paying for the underwear. Outside, Mom and Dad were frantically searching for the narrator with several policemen. When they saw the narrator and the man, the cops tackled the man. The narrator was upset. She was even more upset when her mother lifted her jumper and discovered the black underpants. Realizing what was happening, Mom and Dad tried attacking the man. The police kept them separated. The narrator swallowed the scrap of paper with the man's name, desperate to remember him forever.