Walking4Air

There’s no way around it: This day is going to suck.

Well, that is if you suffer from friggatriskaidekaphobia (also known as paraskevidekatriaphobia) all basically translating to fear of Friday the 13^th, a date considered to be bad luck in western superstition. If Friday the 13^th is unlucky for you, then 2012 is an unusually unlucky year.  This week’s Friday the 13^th is one of three we have to endure this year. This is already our 2^nd Friday the 13^th this year (we already had one on Friday, 13^th January 2012) and it’s not over yet! Next up after today is Friday, 13^th July 2012….

Okay and as I type those dates, I realise, with a slight shudder, that I will be 95% be on Mount Kilimanjaro on the next one. Right, moving swiftly along….!!!

Like many human beliefs, the fear of Friday the 13th isn’t exactly grounded in scientific logic. But the really strange thing is that most of the people who believe the day is unlucky offer no explanation at all, logical or illogical. As with most superstitions, people fear Friday the 13th for its own sake, without any need for background information.

Now I am not a superstitious person.  I’ve never owned a lucky rabbit’s foot; I’m not fearful of black cats nor am I overly concerned about broken mirrors or walking under ladders.  However, I will not walk under a ladder if I can help it and on Friday the 13^th I will say a quick prayer as I climb into my car and head out ~ just in case!

Here’s some universal Friday, 13^th trivia for you ~ All rather fascinating really:

The Huffington Post had the following to say: “Historically, some very unlucky events were said to have occurred on the day. French King Philip IV rounded up hundreds of monks and tortured them for admitting to heresy on Friday, October 13, 1307. Some say Jesus Christ was crucified on Friday the 13th. More recently, on Friday, March 13, 1992, an earthquake in Turkey killed nearly 2,000 and left 50,000 homeless.”

The number 13 itself has long driven people crazy, in large part due to Friday the 13th. Some people are so obsessed that triskaidekaphobia was born – the fear of the number 13.  That fear has led the human race to make some strange decisions and exhibit unusual behavior in the past.  Take a look at some of the craziness I found relating to today: 

• Many cities don’t have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue.
• Most hospitals have no room 13, while more than 80% of high rises lack a 13^th floor and many airports skip the 13^th gate.
• Airplanes have no 13^th aisle.
• Italians omit the number 13 from their national lottery.
• On the streets in Florence, Italy, the house between number 12 and 14 is addressed as 12 and a half.
• Traditionally in hangings, there are 13 knots in the noose and 13 steps leading up to the moment of death.
• President Franklin D. Roosevelt would not travel on the 13th day of any month and would never host 13 guests at a meal. Napoleon and President Herbert Hoover were also triskaidekaphobic, with an abnormal fear of the number 13.
• Mark Twain once was the 13th guest at a dinner party. A friend warned him not to go. “It was bad luck,” Twain later told the friend. “They only had food for 12.”
• The number 13 suffers from its position after 12, according to numerologists who consider the latter to be a complete number — 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles of Jesus, 12 days of Christmas and 12 eggs in a dozen.
• Many say the number 13 pointed to the ill-fated mission to the moon, Apollo 13.
• If you have 13 letters in your name, you’re said to have the devil’s luck. Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names.

I just counted my name, almost panicked as I got near the end, then landed on 14, shew! *Wipes Brow*

For me it’s been a lucky day, so far, in sourcing things for others, so lucky for them anyway. I managed to track down a lost black leather folder that had some very important papers inside.  It had been left in a BIG shopping centre somewhere. Two days ago. I found it!! :)  The second stroke of luck happened when I managed to source 6 x Jungle Beat DVD’s that our company is doing as a promotion for the kids in our stores and a friend asked me about them the other day. She’s a single mom and can’t really afford to take her son, my godson, to eat there six times to get all the DVD’s.  I just managed to get all six for her – for free. (Thanks Neil for giving your copies up so generously!) She doesn’t know it yet and she might very well scream out aloud when she reads this, but that’s okay it goes well with Friday the 13^th anyway, so it’s all good! If you are reading this…. don’t tell my godson, I want to surprise him! Just maybe not today. As for me, I would say I’m going straight home after work and staying there till at least midnight, just in case, but I have dinner plans and life doesn’t wait for me.  Now if only I could find some really sexy, smouldering hunky, bad boy ‘Camel cigarette smoking’ type man with lips that just say ‘kiss me’, with whom I could conclude Friday the 13th and “National Kissing Day” with, I would consider myself extremely lucky…. however, I have a really big feeling that my day is going to continue to be more Friday the 13th than national kissing day!

So for some, face it, you’re screwed. Today is Friday the 13th — the unluckiest day on the calendar — so try not to crash your car, fall down a flight of stairs, set yourself on fire or do anything else that might compromise your well-being. And for goodness sake, stay away from men in hockey masks!