Throughout my life I have always thoroughly enjoyed the fact that I have never had a bad Friday the 13th. It feels great every time I get the opportunity to drop kick superstition right in between the eyes. After realizing that my work schedule and under-the-weather-ness could potentially throw me into some unsavory circumstances I wasn't about to give the 13th the satisfaction of hearing me admit it was a bout of bad luck. I was given a route with an early morning appointment with my other appointments spanning the afternoon and evening with hours of mind numbing free time. Considering I work an hour from home I had to pass the time on the road. How could I prove to the 13th it wouldn't get the best of me? What could I do to stick it to the fates and say I will not live shackled by chains of curses and misfortune? I could..... I COULD..... spend my free time actively racking up as much "bad luck" as I could by doing every unlucky thing I could think of (or google). "To Walmart!" I screamed in a horse, unforgiving voice and I set off empowered by my new thirst for rebellion. As I knew the breaking of any mirror that resided in my home or on my truck would not be in my best interest I sought one out.
If being smashed by a hammer is a mirrors equivalent of dying with dignity then it was a beautiful ceremony. If not then at least it was quick and somewhat painless.
Ladders were not the only things I kept an eye out for. In fact I had quite the list of things I was hoping to come across. One of them being umbrellas that were to be immediately opened indoors.
Find a penny pick it up and all day long you'll have good luck? I don't think so. Every penny I saw with the heads side up I refused to pick up. Quarters, nickles and dimes were still free game of course.
Probably the most difficult challenge was to force a black cat to cross my path. Even after paying a visit to the main office that is normally crawling with at least 13 billion cats at any given time I could not find the devil-spawn anywhere. I finally found one later on in the day. He was mangy, menacing and only had half a tail. The perfect cat to harbor bad luck if ever I saw one. Unfortunately the demon seed would not pose for a picture so instead I offer you Felix. Felix is a dark gray cat that I see most often around the office. He isn't black but he doesn't mind getting his picture taken so he'll have to do for sake of visual representation.
With only a year of high school theater class under my belt I never took to saying 'break a leg' instead of 'good luck'. I always liked to think that it was less superstition and more a way for jealous understudies to verbally express there desire for advantageous mishaps and not be reprimanded. What I didn't know was another way to welcome bad luck beside wishing good luck was to say Macbeth in the theater. Granted I said it in a movie theater but it was the best I could do.
People throw spilled salt over their left shoulder because of the old tale about the devil always standing behind you. I have never held a superstition about spilling salt but I have always thrown it over my shoulder anyway because the idea of throwing salt in the devil's eyes makes me smile. This time I didn't. Next time Lucifer. Next time.
Oops, my luck fell out. How careless of me.
To rap the night up I sent myself a chain letter and immediately deleted it. I hate it when social media tries to guilt me into sharing something. Whether I support the notion or not it irks me. Chain letters are no different. No one can tell me what to do! ...except my mom........and my wife.
Luckily neither of them initiate chain letters.
In the end it wasn't just a salvaged day but a masterpiece of a day. Purposefully doing everything I could think of to hypothetically sick the demons on myself was less of a war on superstition and more of a war against my own pessimism and despondency. The whole idea of being cursed with bad luck is an excuse to be self-defeating. Sure chance can be for us or against us but when we decide to blame our bad attitude and missed opportunities on a meaningless act bringing misfortune upon us we're festering in our own self pity instead of moving forward.
Most of the time we bring bad days or bad luck upon ourselves due to poor expectations. My attempt to have a great day instead of a terrible one proved once again to me that people don't have to have a bad experience if they don't want to. Better yet our having a good day can influence those we interact with to feel better about their potential problems too.
