Superstitions

I'm not a terribly superstitious person.

When I'm cooking, and the recipe calls for salt, I pour what I need into the palm of my cupped hand. I dump that into the bowl and then, because my opposite hand usually has a spoon in it or something, I curl my hand into a fist and try to flick the salt off of my (notoriously clammy) palm with my fingernails. Sometimes I flick over my shoulder. Sometimes I flick in front of me. And sometimes it's asking too much of myself, so I just wipe the extra salt on my pant leg and move on.

When I worked construction, I was often the smallest worker on site. So when someone was working on a ladder and dropped something, or they simply needed ground-level assistance, I would walk under said ladder and do what needed to be done. Sometimes I didn't even just pass under the ladder - I would stand there for moments on end. I was little, and I fit. So it made sense.

For a practical sort of someone (as I can be, from time to time...) superstition just doesn't compute.**1 I don't get the salt thing. I don't get the ladder thing. And I really don't get "Friday the Thirteenth."

Today is Monday the Thirteenth. To me, this seems like the day for superstition.

Fridays are always full of win. It's the end of the work week! It's usually a shorter work day, because people can knock off at 4:30 and head out for pre-weekend happy hour. And even if it's a regular-length work day, it's better because there isn't work in the morning. You can get out of work at your regular time and go see a late movie because you don't have to be up in the morning.

It would make so much more sense to me if Monday the Thirteenth were greeted with superstition.

Mondays suck. End of story. Sometimes you can come in to the office and still be rocking the weekend high, but it doesn't last for long. Work sucks the fun and the hope and the happiness right out of you, and you're left with soul-sucking emptiness and the knowledge that you won't rest freely again for another four nights.

I woke up this morning filled to bursting with trepidation. A couple of important phone calls are on the horizon today, so I'll be waiting anxiously for those all day.

I'm stuck at the switchboard today. That fills me with the angst of boredom, because there simply isn't enough to do here to keep an active mind occupied.

I mean, sure... I've got some invoices to do.

I've got a timecard to fill out.

And I get to look forward to tomorrow, when the Receptionist will return brimming with reports of today's medical procedures.

Does that sound lucky to you?

Happy Monday, ReaderFriends!

**1 Boyfriend of Amazingness is even more practical than I, and is absolutely heedless of superstition. Yesterday we fell into a discussion of the tradition wherein a man carries his lady across the threshold of their new home. It's a subject a few friends have broached with us, declaring that (if he loves me at all) he must tote me in. We finally pinpointed his confusion over the situation as we realized that he hadn't the foggiest from whence this tradition had stemmed.**2

**2 In case you're foggy on it too: The tradition came from those age-old days where, typically, a man and his brandy-new bride would get a new home as a wedding gift from their parents, or would purchase a new home that they moved into immediately following their wedding. It was terrible luck for a bride to trip on the threshold of her brandy-new home, and if she did, she couldn't live there. Thus a tradition was born: The man, in order to have a happy and healthy home complete with the bride he just married, would tote her over the threshold and therefore avoid any tripping hazard that might impede his impending conjugal rights. Because, really, that's what it's all about: If the bride can't live there, she can't make his pot roast and they certainly can't do the boogie woogie.