On Friday the Thirteenth:

Today is Friday the Thirteenth. And according to the news announcer on my morning TV news show it is one of the safest days of the year. Even robberies are down.

Apparently all those people who are afraid of it are being so careful that the world is a much safer place on this day. This is according to a Danish study I believe he said. I took his word for it and didn’t take the time to look it up on the web. And my own Daughter Princess is a nurse and said the same thing. ‘Accidents are down on Friday the Thirteenth.’

I have always liked watching other people on this day when it comes around. They will do the most extraordinary things. My grandmother was a very superstitious person and would practically hide in the house when it came along.

My mother liked baiting other people to do the things she would never do herself like daring them to break mirrors or walk under ladders. Oh the horror on their faces.

I didn’t like the convergence of my world and theirs. I was watched to see what I would do. Did they expect me to turn into something else? And if I did, what was I suppose to turn into? Or was smoke suppose to come out of my ears or something? So I took to just staring them down. I still think that they thought they had somehow stopped this change from happening in a backwards sort of way. Like because they were looking and I was too contrary to make the change in front of their eyes, their looking had done the trick and had tricked me into wasting the day away unchanged. To me it was one of the most boring days of the year. Nothing ever happened.

So I sat around unmoved and watched the ‘normal’ folk around me as they would throw salt over their left shoulders, peek around corners for black cats, cross themselves continually and heave long sighs of relief when something very unlikely to happen in the first place didn’t happen after all.

Now I know that there are strange powers in the world and that things do happen. But people come on. If it is worth being careful just because of a date on a calendar, why not just be careful all of the time and give us back our holiday.

Have a happy, safe and enjoyable Friday the Thirteenth everybody.