A few weeks ago I stepped out the front door of Beverly Hills Ducati, and as I started up the sidewalk toward my car I noticed a movie billboard a block North, looming over La Cienega Boulevard:  

                          Friday the 13^th

                            February 13^th

It was a couple days away, and naturally, February 13 was going to be a Friday.  Fitting enough, right?  Great day to open a movie by the same name, and it’s probably been done every time they put one of these out.  

Anyway, that was four weeks ago today.  So this is the second F13 we’ve had in two months.  Is this an omen?  No, but that’s another scary movie.

Look, some people really get freaked out about Friday the 13^th.  Adults, I mean.

Maybe you know someone?

Or maybe it’s you.

We’re loaded with diagnoses for everything these days, so I guess it’s no surprise that the fear of F13 actually has a name:  Friggatriskaidekaphobia.  Depending on who you believe, just being alive on this date strikes fear into the heart of 7-13% of the population.

I had to write a note this morning for my 10 year old daughter, so the school would know it’s alright for her to go home with a friend this afternoon.

Instead of writing the date normally at the top, I put “Friday 13^th“.  Why did I do that.  Was I trying to startle the teacher?  I don’t know.  Okay, yes.

It worked on Caroline, at least.  She looked at the note, and said, “Dad, why did you do that, I don’t need to know it’s Friday the 13^th!” 

I just smiled.  

Then the admonishment, because she knew what I was thinking:  “Bad stuff really does happen on that date, Dad.”

“Well,” I said, “Just because it’s Friday the 13^th that doesn’t mean bad things can’t happen.  And if they do happen, the day gets the blame.”   

It’s true that for some people, F13 carries a lot of weight.  For a day they surrender themselves to being a virtual Shleprock, complete with storm cloud overhead, just waiting to see if they make it through to Saturday unscathed.

For the true believers, the anxiety of facing a day with cleverly placed trap-doors and falling rocks may actually lead to making mistakes they wouldn’t have otherwise made.  At the end of the day they say to themselves with confidence and regret:  “I knew it.  I should have never gotten out of bed this morning.”  It’s the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy.

Then there’s the rest of us, who know the day and its reputation, but give it little weight or thought—until something ‘bad happens’.  And it doesn’t have to be much.  On any on other day it would be an ordinary problem, obstacle or nuisance…  but then we remember the date:  Friday the 13^th.

And suddenly we have to wonder if the true believers might be onto something.    

And actually, they are.  Good or bad, we generally get what we expect, right?

Tags: superstition

This entry was posted on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 12:38 pm and is filed under Thought Control. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.