The omens say this might not be your day

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By JAN GLIDEWELL

© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 13, 2001

Betcha didn't even think about it till now, did you?

Welcome to Friday the 13th, a favorite holiday for triskaidekaphobics, who are people who fear the number 13, probably along with spilled salt, broken mirrors, walking under ladders and having their spouses find the wrong size Victoria's Secret underwear in their glove compartments. (Trust me, that's bad luck.).

Try to look at the bright side. The market is already in the toilet. We've already elected (sort of) Dubya president and NBC has just announced the advent of yet another reality-TV show, so what else bad can happen?

I checked, there are no Prince or Billy Joel tours planned in the near future.

Just how Friday the 13th originally became associated with bad luck isn't something we are 100 percent sure of.

Some experts say the superstition goes back to Nordic mythology and it is generally held that Christ's last supper, at which 13 persons were seated, was on a Friday.

I used to get the whole thing confused with the "three on a match," superstition, which originated in World War II with the belief that a match held lit long enough to light three cigarettes gave a sniper time to aim and fire.

I came firmly to believe in the "13 on a match," corollary, which was that a match held long enough to light 13 cigarettes would surely burn the heck out of your fingers.

Real or not, most hotels today have no 13th floors (actually they have 13th floors, they just redesignate them the 14th floor because, I assume, whatever evil spirit causes bad luck is deemed numerically illiterate).

And there are many historians who think that Columbus actually landed in the "new world" (so called because it was new to lost European white guys) on Oct. 13, 1492, but that his log was changed because of the superstition.

I did have two automobile accidents on two successive Fridays the 13th back in the 1960s and stayed leery of the date for a decade or two after that, but I got over it and even took an airplane trip last year on that supposedly scary date.

I guess the fact that the airline completely screwed up the ticketing on my flight could have been attributed to bad luck, but I've had too much of the same kind of experience on too many other days to make a direct connection there.

There also used to be a personnel manager's maxim that said "hire on Monday, fire on Friday" which made those unsure of their job security a little jumpy right before the TGIF parties started.

NASA dodged a superstition bullet Thursday when it was able to launch the space shuttle Atlantis on time rather than waiting a day because of the weather. NASA denies any superstition about the number 13, even though it was the ill-fated Apollo 13 that was launched at 13:13 hours (1:13 p.m.) from launch pad 39, which is three times 13.

Superstitious or not, when somebody sets me on top of that much high explosive controlled by a mechanism built by the lowest bidders selected by a federal bureaucracy, I would have a rabbit's foot . . . or maybe whole rabbit.

I wish I could lay claim to being without superstition, but I have traveled for years with a juju bag full of charms which I feel foolish looking for before a trip -- but look for nonetheless.

I also have my own set of superstitions which has served me equally well as the standards:

Never squat with your spurs on.

Never wash delicate portions of your anatomy with anti-dandruff shampoo.

Never say "told ya" to your spouse while Bill Clinton is on television defining sexual intercourse.

Never turn in an expense account the total amount of which is divisible by five. The accounting department expects at least an attempt at credibility.

And always, always, remember that the correct answer to the question, "Do these pants make me look fat?" is never, "Why don't you ask that lamp you just knocked off the end table."

Be safe.

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