I like to think I’m not a superstitious person, but the
truth is, I really am.
There are some superstitions that don’t bother me, such as
Friday the 13th. If it truly were a day of bad luck, then everyone on the
planet would have a crummy day, which seems highly unlikely to me. In fact, I
know a lot of people who consider 13 to be their lucky number.
But for those who do fear Friday the 13th, be aware that if
the first day of a month falls on a Sunday, there will be a Friday the 13th
during that month. So this year, April and July will be the designated
“unlucky” ones.
I’ve also never been concerned about walking under a ladder
– unless there’s a guy perched on top of it and he’s holding a bucket of paint.
Picturing him losing his balance and dousing me with a heavy coating of
“sunshine yellow” usually is enough to make me walk around a ladder.
And I can remember back when I was in grammar school and one
of the kids told me about, “step on a crack and break your mother’s back.” I was horrified. As I walked home from
school that day, I looked down at every crack on the sidewalk, being very
careful not to step on any. Alas, my big foot finally landed on a crack and I
burst out crying, thinking I’d arrive home to find my mother lying immobile and
in pain on the floor, all because I’d stepped on a crack. Fortunately, my mom
was just fine, so that immediately dispelled that superstition.
But there are three superstitions that always have made me
feel ill at ease.
First, there’s the superstition that if a black cat crosses
your path, you’ll have bad luck. Well, years ago, one of my neighbors owned a
black cat and it crossed my path nearly every time I left the house. It got to the point where whenever I saw
that darned cat coming toward me, I’d either run (or drive) in the other
direction to avoid having it walk directly in front of me.
“If the cat has even a few white hairs on it, then it’s not
considered a true black cat and doesn’t cause bad luck,” one of my friends
informed me. “Have you ever checked under its chin or on its chest? If it has
any white hairs, that’s where they’ll most likely be.”
So I sat out on my front steps one day and lured the cat
over to me by waving some fried chicken at it. Then, as the cat nibbled on the
chicken, I took a good look at its chest and saw three distinct white hairs
standing out against the black. I breathed a sigh of relief. The cat wasn’t a
genuine black cat after all, so I was safe!
I never avoided the animal again after that, even though I did realize
there was the remote possibility those three white hairs might have fallen out
at some point and transformed him back into a bad-luck cat.
There also was the superstition about spilled salt causing
bad luck. But in this case, the bad luck supposedly could be prevented if you
immediately threw a pinch of the spilled salt over your left shoulder to,
according to legend, blind the invisible devil waiting there behind you.
Well, over the years, I spilled enough salt to fill a shaker
the size of a trash barrel. And every time I spilled it, I’d toss a pinch of it
over not one, but both of my shoulders, just to be doubly safe. I mean, how was
I supposed to be certain about which side of my back the invisible devil might be
lurking?
The problem was, I once spilled the salt in a restaurant and
flung a pinch of it over both shoulders. I wasn’t aware that at that precise
moment, the waitress was right behind me, bending over to put my drink on the
table. Unless she actually was the devil in disguise, I’m pretty sure I nearly
blinded the wrong entity.
But the superstition that actually has brought me
ongoing bad luck and has been the bane of my existence for years is the one
with the longest bad-luck curse…breaking a mirror. Any poor person who has the misfortune of breaking a mirror is
doomed to face seven long years of torture.
The whole mirror superstition is based on the ancient belief
that your reflection in the mirror actually is your captured soul. Break the
mirror and basically, you wreck your soul, which, also according to ancient
beliefs, then takes seven years to renew itself. Thus, seven years of bad luck
follow…until your damaged soul is whole again.
I’ll never forget the first time I broke a mirror. I still
was in high school and had signed up for a co-ed judo class at the YMCA. As I
was rushing to get ready for the class one evening, I quickly grabbed my small
mirror from my purse so I could check my makeup. The next thing I knew, the
mirror was lying on the floor and I was picking up the pieces.
During the class that night, the judo instructor taught us
the basic moves of throwing and falling. Throwing involved using your hip to
catch your opponent off balance, and then tossing him over it and onto the
floor. Falling involved protecting yourself (if you were the unfortunate one
being thrown) by using your arm, from your wrist to your elbow, as your
designated landing zone.
There usually were at least two other females in the class,
but that night, I was the only non-male who showed up. So I was paired with a guy
(a.k.a. the Incredible Hulk), to practice our throwing and falling techniques.
Not only couldn’t I lift the guy an inch to throw him, and
nearly herniated a few disks in the process, when it was his turn to do the
throwing and he flung me over his hip, I went airborne…and landed with all of
my weight on my right big toe. I think people out on the street heard it crack.
I learned the true definition of the word “humiliation” that
night when I had to sit, still wearing my judo outfit, in the emergency room at
Sacred Heart Hospital. Even worse, the doctor turned out to be comedian.
“Hey, Kung Fu!” he greeted me, shaking his head and
chuckling. “How did you break your toe?”
I wasn’t amused.
Thanks to the broken mirror, my luck got only worse after
that. The toe didn’t heal correctly and
needed surgery, so I had to learn how to manipulate crutches on the 10,000
stairs in my high school because nothing was handicapped accessible back then.
Also, while I still was recovering, I happened to witness a crime and was
subpoenaed to testify in court…on the day of my mid-term exams.
After seven years of suffering with bad luck at every turn,
the day arrived when I realized that I, at long last, finally would be free of
the curse. My seven-year sentence was over! I was so excited, I nearly broke
out the champagne as I counted down the minutes.
And the very next week, I broke another mirror.
If only I had known back then that there actually were
antidotes to remove the seven-year curse, such as burying the broken pieces of
the mirror outside beneath a full moon, or pulverizing the pieces into a powder
so they never could reflect anything again, maybe I wouldn’t have needed a
second surgery on my toe or had to hobble around on crutches once again. This inevitably caused me to lose my first full-time
job as a Girl Friday – an errand “runner” - in a big office building.
On second thought, maybe that wasn’t such bad luck
after all.
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