I ain't superstitious

Don't want a four leaf clover
Don't want an old horse shoe
Want your kiss 'cause I just can't miss
With a good luck charm like you

(Elvis Presley - Good Luck Charm)

We've waited so long for this unlucky day, Friday the 13th, to record for posterity, as they say, some of our private superstitions.

I have heard that some skyscrapers and hotels in this country don't include a 13th floor. I've never been inside one, but I have often wondered what is between the 12th and 14th floors of such buildings. As for an old horse shoe, you can buy one at your local flea market. Luck for sale.

I live in a house located on the 13th hundred block of the street, and I can't complain of long strings of bad luck. But then I can't brag of good luck either.

I won't walk under ladders. I am careful about not breaking mirrors. I do step on the cracks in the sidewalk. I knock on unpainted wood (which is harder and harder to come by these days.) I won't open an umbrella in the house. Clover has been invading my once beautiful lawn for years, but I have yet to find a four leaf clover. I have experienced beginner's luck when playing games. I don't wash my car, as doing so will surely bring rain. I do not think that a bird pooping on my car will bring me good luck, but I do believe that stepping into dog poop will.

I beware of black cats crossing the road, and when walking I will occasionally wait for someone else (a sucker!) to pass me when faced with being the first person whose path the cat crossed. (You ought to try doing this in America, when often enough you are the only man on foot for miles around, arousing suspicions of normal citizens inside their moving vehicles, and inviting friendly chats from police cruisers stopping by just for you.) When driving, I try to run over the damn black pest. About the time my current string of bad luck started, a black cat crossed the road in front of my car, I wasn't close enough to run it over, and the only bright spot I saw at the time was that the cat's feet were white. The paws gave me a pause. Alas, the legs didn't lift my luck a lick!

The black cat with white feet happened on a Saturday morning when I do my shopping errands with eight or nine stops to complete. Eight in China signifies prosperity, and nine long life, so at least on Saturdays things ought to look copacetic. During the same recent time period, I was finding what are called lucky pennies -- I found three, giving two of them to the woman I was thinking of while spotting them, and I still have the third one, right here in the breast pocket of my shirt. You are supposed to blow on coins found on the street for good luck. I do. The three lucky pennies have brought no kind of luck.

If I found a lucky penny
I'd toss it across the bay
Your love is worth all the gold on earth
No wonder that I say

Come on and be my little good luck charm
Uh-huh huh, you sweet delight
I want a good luck charm
a-hanging on my arm
Uh to have, (to have), uh to hold, (to hold), uh tonight

The late great Willie Dixon wrote I Ain't Superstitious

Well I ain't superstitious, but a black cat crossed my trail
Ain't superstitious, but a black cat crossed my trail
Don't dust me with no broom babe, just might land in jail

Well the dogs be howling all round my neighbourhood
Dogs be howling all round my the neighbourhood
Sure is a bad sign babe, don't mean no earthly good

When my right hand itches, I gets money for sure
When my right hand itches, I gets money for sure
But when my left eye jumps babe, somebody got to go