Today is Friday the 13th. According to the ever-accurate website Wikipedia, it is estimated that 800-900 million dollars is lost in business on Friday the thirteenth. Why? Because people are so superstitious that they stay at home. What?
This is a typical outcome of folklore. Weird occurrences in history spawn sayings like, “Don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your mother’s back.” Sayings get passed on over generations, until they become staples. And of course, there’s the one time someone’s mother broke her back hours after that same someone happened to step on a crack.
Here’s my take on some common superstitions:
- Walking under a ladder brings you bad luck. Personally, I don’t walk under ladders because I’m afraid either the ladder or the person on the ladder will fall on me. Especially if that ladder happens to be on top of the porch and James is the one climbing to the top of the roof. This happened last weekend, and just standing under the ladder and holding onto it freaked me out. Is this because of superstition? No, it’s physics.- Having an itchy palm means good luck is coming to you. WHAT? Where did this come from? Having an itchy palm means you probably touched something that irritated your skin.
- Breaking a mirror brings you seven years of bad luck. I can tell you exactly what breaking a mirror brings. When I was about seven, I was brushing my tangled perm, and in a burst of frustration, I threw my brush at the mirror. Of course, the mirror cracked. Although my sisters told me I’d have seven years of bad luck, what I really got was a stern talking-to from my mom. Then she put fish decals on the mirror to hide the crack.
- If you spill salt, you should throw it over your left shoulder. No, you shouldn’t. You should clean it up with a rag.
- Knocking on wood brings you good luck. The only knocking on wood I have done was while playing the card game, Knock on Wood.
- A black cat crossing your path means bad luck. This is probably only the case when the path is actually a freeway. And then, it’s the cat’s bad luck, not yours. Plus, I like cats of all colors. I’m not racist.
- When a knife is dropped at the dinner table, it means a male guest will arrive. No, this means Eden has grabbed the knife from the table and purposefully thrown it on the floor. Maybe she believes in this superstition.
- At your wedding, you should wear something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. I never really thought of this as a superstition, more of as a fun tradition. And yes, I did follow this tradition, just for fun. I wore an old bracelet, a new dress, a borrowed petticoat, and a blue garter.
So, what does this mean? I will echo the words of Michael Scott: “I’m not superstitious, but I am a little ’stitious.”