Don’t look now, scaredy cats, but it's Friday the thirteenth. Again.
This is the third time in 2015, the most it’s possible for the dreaded date to fall in any calendar year, which means its been a bumper one in royalties for the abysmal teen-slasher movie franchise, and a bummer for the superstitious.
Apart from the terrible kind that lead to witch hunts and the like, I love superstitions. They are silly in a way that only the human race can be silly. I love the fact that I can’t even contemplate the topic without hearing that Stevie Wonder bassline.
There are so many of them, when you start to look around the world, and most of them put our ladder and black cat avoidance efforts to shame on the bizarrometer.
Japanese children are told to believe that their belly buttons will be eaten by the thunder god, Raijin, if they don’t shield their stomachs during storms. In India it’s bad luck to cut your nails on a Tuesday or Saturday. Traditional belief in Nigeria holds that a man struck by a broom will become impotent, with actual genital disappearance known to occur in extreme cases. While women in Rwanda are encouraged to avoid goat meat, lest they grow beards.
Yes, apart from when it leads to intolerance and murder, like it does, say, with religion, this is excellent stuff. It brightens up our days, or at least gives them an edge.
And, beyond those superstitions and associate rituals (knocking on wood, throwing salt over shoulders, bless-you'ing a sneeze) that we might share culturally, there are those little quirks and rites that many of us practise privately through life. From the cracks on the pavement for the child walking to school, to the lucky toy on the student’s desk, the interviewee’s underwear and the gambler’s complex network of charms and observances, we can’t seem to get enough of this stuff.
Just one more way we try to wrest control of a chaotic universe, perhaps.
Like garlic breath and the attendance of unruly children, a superstitious disposition is something we forgive more readily in ourselves than others.
I don’t think I’m especially superstitious. I believe in science, which is, of course, not the same as understanding it. I am, though, prone to the odd wince when my daughter opens her Disney princess umbrella indoors, and then there’s that thing I do with the light switch. It goes back to my childhood, if you’d allow me to share.
From around the age of seven, I learned to deal with the monsters I had no doubt were lurking under my bed or in my wardrobe, waiting for an opportunity to devour or disembowel me, by following a simple bedtime procedure. On switching off the bedroom light, I would wait a beat - long enough for them to begin to emerge from their hiding-places (that monsters only come out at night a given) - only to then cunningly flick the light back on to catch them out. I’d scour the room for signs of movement, then turn it off again. Taking this step would ensure my safety, I decided.
Last thing at night, I still do it, without thought. I don’t actually scour for monsters, these days, but I still go through the motions. Off. Beat. On. Beat. Off. My partner generally gets to the switch first, as it seems to be annoying.
Like garlic breath and the attendance of unruly children, a superstitious disposition is something we forgive more readily in ourselves than others.
And then there are the professions in which it’s almost to be expected. Actors to this day are to be found in backstage corridors, turning circles and cursing, having been ejected from dressing rooms for speaking the name of the Scottish play. Individual sportsfolk hoard talismen and devise tortuous systems of towel application, while those in teams emerge from tunnels at precisely the right juncture, or take turns in kissing the goalkeeper’s bald head.
It’s reassuring to believe that other walks of life attract the more rational among us. I for one would not relish going under the scalpel with any neurosurgeon who has suddenly realised that he’s just put his gloves on in unfavourable sequence.
World leaders, too. Not a sector in which superstitious belief sits comfortably. Disturbing, then, to consider, that at the height of the cold war, Ronald Reagan, most powerful B-movie actor and human in the world, shaky finger on the button, was holding weekly meetings with his astrologer.
Not that Ronny was alone. Roosevelt. Churchill. Napoleon. Triskaidekaphobics, all. Stricken with a morbid fear of the number 13, particularly when aligned with a Friday.
Which brings us back to today. Again. Friday the 13th. For the third time this year. Those of us who got through those bedeviled days in February and March without catastrope could be hoping to go into this one with more confidence, blase even. We got through two of the bastards unscathed, what’s there to fear?
Then again, you know what they say - third time's the charm. Careful out there.
Ian Rose is a Melbourne-based writer.
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