on Other People's Bad Luck

I'm not a highly superstitious person. If a black cat passes my way, I just want to pet it for a minute. I've walked under hundreds of ladders in my life and even broken a few mirrors. In fact, I am so non-superstitious that I actually got married on a 13th. Granted, it was a Tuesday, but it guaranteed me a few Friday-the-13th anniversaries.

I'm totally OK with that.

Because really, we've assigned the bad luck atmosphere to Friday the 13th in a fairly arbitrary way. I'm certain that unlucky things happen on every day of the year. In fact, since I am decidedly not a lucky person, unlucky is one of my constant companions every day of the year.

I forgot yesterday was the dreaded Friday the 13th until someone else's bad luck reversed my own misfortunes. See, my husband and I were having a tiff (shocking!), and we were both grumpy and barely putting up with each other's presence. But we had to run a few errands together anyway. We found ourselves on our crowded and construction-filled freeway, just passing a freeway entrance and right next to a highway patrol car, when suddenly a dude in an old muscle car squealed onto the freeway and raced right past us—and the highway patrolman.

And while I am not one to gloat on someone else's misfortune—as I am something of a lead foot myself, I had nothing but empathy for the speeding dude—I confess: watching the cop hesitate for a second (maybe checking the license plate first?) and then punch it to catch up with the speeding dude, and then turn his lights on and pull him over? Well, it was thrilling. And it lifted us right out of our grumpiness. As we drove past the pulled-over dude, it hit me: that guy is totally blaming this on Friday the 13th bad luck.

But my day was actually a pretty good one. Not lucky, really. I didn't win a single thing. But I did get a lot done and I had a few minutes all to myself which I used for reading. I remembered to get the gum out of Jake's jeans before I washed them. The weird sound my computer started making was just something with the fan, and how lucky am I to have a husband who can fix such things? Plus, I had the most fabulous thing: I went to dinner with my friend Chris, and it was just what I needed. We laughed, we talked about the past and the future, we cried a little, she helped me find some non-lame hair bands. It was sort of unlucky that I forgot to snap a photo of us, but still. That's tiny compared to how I felt driving home.

It was a good night with a person I am so lucky to have in my life!

I was only five minutes on the freeway when I came to a dead stop, unluckily about 20 feet past a freeway exit. But lucky enough I had my cellphone with me, and it was charged, so I called Becky. Someone else's misfortune—there were several cars in the crash that closed down all but one freeway lane—gave me 25 minutes to talk to my sister. We shared some good news and some really bad news on her part. I feel awful for Becky, whose husband lost his job yesterday. (Yes! On Friday the 13th. Seriously, seriously bad luck. The worst, in fact.)

But all in all? My Friday the 13th was fairly lucky. And as it is the last Friday I have before I turn 40, perhaps that bodes well for my next decade?

 

Comments

[Wendy]

We were married on Friday the 13th, so we love when our anniversary falls on a Friday the 13th like it did yesterday. We went swimming as a family to celebrate and had no bad luck. :)

I think your next year will be a year of good blessings!

[Chris S.]

On the way home I thought to myself, "we should have taken a picture to look back on in another 40 years to remember this night"

I consider talking to you, while we were waiting for our interviews, as one of my luckiest moments.

My heart goes out to Becky and Shane:(

[Janel]

We were married on Friday the 13. 13 months later on the 13th at 1300 hrs Carter was born. I'd have to say 13 is a pretty lucky number for me.