Surviving Friday the 13th

Are you superstitious?

I wouldn’t say that I am particularly superstitious but a lot of people where I work are. So Friday was a bit of a nightmare because no one wanted to be working on Friday 13th. It didn’t help that we had an electrician in fixing one of the strip lights… so there were ladders in the office as well. Needless to say, everyone was avoiding going near them in case that counted as walking underneath them!

The thing about superstitions is that is once you start taking them seriously, you start seeing plenty of stuff that backs them up. This week was a good example. One of the support workers at work spent most of the morning worrying about the date. Then at lunchtime, she went out to the shop and tripped over a paving stone. She wasn’t badly hurt but she gave her knee a bit of a bang. Of course, she put that down to the curse of Friday 13th and spent the rest of the day looking terrified that something else would happen.

That accident could have happened on any day of the week. Would she have felt the same if she had tripped up on Thursday 12th? Or if it had been Friday 14th or Friday 15th? Probably not. But she’s convinced that her accident proves her superstitions about that spooky date now.

I suppose the only thing I am superstitious about is magpies. I always salute when I see one. I don’t know if I really believe that something bad will happen if I don’t do the salute. But then again, I’ve never tried it to find out! Saluting magpies is just something I’ve always done and so it sort of comes automatically now. If I didn’t do it, I’d feel a bit weird – like something was missing or I’d forgotten something important. Maybe that’s more a habit than a superstition? I’m not sure.

Well, anyway, I’ve survived another Friday 13th and the magpies haven’t got me yet, so I must have done something right. And the superstitious people at work can relax again… the ladders have gone, and we don’t need to worry about another Friday 13th until October!