Friday the 13th, and other silly superstitions.

I have rather touched on this subject before, but being that it is Friday the 13th, I cannot help myself. I am going to do it again. I found this article at msn.com, regarding superstitions of the world.

Very interesting that in the UK, a black cat crossing your path is considered good luck, while here in the great United States of America, the superstition is exactly opposite. I have a family member who, about 30 years ago, actually slammed on his brakes and backed up his car until he got to a driveway, to turn around and go a different direction because a black kitty cat crossed the road in front of him. Now that my friends, is a superstition run deep.

I like the paragraph about the shamrock in Ireland being a good-luck charm. We have spent many a beautiful day as a family sitting in a patch, looking for that ever-illusive four-leaf clover. I personally can look all day, and never find one. However, my little brother, we took him camping with us one time, and he must have found twenty-five of those little buggers. I really do not believe that they bring luck, but they are so difficult for me to find that I do keep them pressed in a book in my library when I do get one.

There are a couple of other oddball superstitions in this article, but I want to talk about the number 13. Why do we think it such a bad number? Why does Friday the 13th become even more “cursed” than any other day numbered 13? Well I have researched these things in the past, so I am going to pass on some knowledge here.

In the Western world, Friday has always been considered an unlucky day. When combined with the fear of the number 13…well, you get the picture. These superstitions go back at least as far as the 17th century. It is really hard to get any specific facts as to why these things are considered unlucky. Friday is rooted in Christian faith, as it is said the crucifixion happened on a Friday. (Where as Good Friday is the only exception to this belief.) The number 13 being unlucky, also stems from Christian faith, in that there were 13 people at the table for the Last Supper, and Judas was the first to leave the table, died at his own hand shortly thereafter.

Although nowadays we mostly just poke fun at the superstition surrounding Friday the 13th, it is interesting to note things like; there is no 13th Street in Joplin. There are also no hotel rooms with the number 13, nor a 13th floor in any building. (Oddly enough, there is a 13th floor; they just call it the 14th.)

So yes, it is just a silly superstition, but it is rather fun to spend the day watching the superstitious try to get around “all that bad luck” throughout the day. When really, if anything bad were going to happen, it would have happened whether it was Friday the 13th or not.