This thread inspires me to go ahead and ask something I’ve been meaning to ask here for a while – for those who do have superstitions , what are they? I’m thinking of starting a poll, and need to figure out what to include.
For me, the main one is knocking on wood – I truly do it, will stop and look around for something wooden to knock on, and if there’s nothing around (like in my cubicle at work), I will knock my own head. And I always knock twice, but I think that’s just habit, I don’t think I would jinx anything by knocking once or three times.
This is the one that leaves me feeling truly uneasy if I don’t do it. I do say “bless you” if someone sneezes, but that’s more a courtesy thing, and I avoid using the last match in a pack, but I wouldn’t not light a match if I needed to and it were the only one available.
What about you?
Note: Skeptics and scoffers – pls. start a new thread or go to the one linked to if you want to debate the fine points of superstition as a mindset. For this thread, we’re taking them as a given and not judging those who are willing to own up to them.
I don’t believe in any pagan gods, but if I ever have occasion to talk about them I think I’d feel a bit reluctant to disparage Zeus, Athena et al or invite any personal comparisons to them. When I see a pop star’s promotional material touting herself as a “goddess,” I wince just a bit internally and think, “don’t you know what kind of disaster you’re inviting upon yourself, Missie?”
It only happened once, but I worked with a guy who bought his g/f an engagement ring. Before he gave it to her that evening, he showed it to us during lunch, and without even thinking, I tried it on. I immediately felt just AWFUL, like I committed a major faux pas, and couldn’t stop apologizing. This was years ago and I still wonder how that marriage worked out, and if I had jinxed it by trying on that ring.
I never leave the house without my keys. Even if I go out to get the mail, I feel uncomfortable if I don’t have my key in my pocket.
I seem to look for omens early in the day, and thanks to teh interwebs, I have a variety of sites to get my omen fix. Tarot card of the day; horoscope; quote of the day; thought of the day; oceangram.com. I’ll click on one or the other, and if the message is pleasing, that’s swell! That means I’m going to have a good day coming up! If I don’t like the results, I’m bummed, and because of self-fulfilling prophecy (“The Ten of Swords was my tarot card today, I am walking on the edge of Mount Doom today! The message in the bottle was mean and offensive, people are going to treat me poorly!”) … I don’t really believe in horoscopes, though, I read just to laugh: “Romance is in the air for you!” which just means my husband will thank me for finding his red flannel shirt, and does not mean Fabio is going to come and sweep me away, lol!
Well, I never thought about this before, but I guess my myriad of behavioral quirks can be divided into two categories: things that one does to actually avert ill fortune, like salt over the left shoulder and knocking wood; and things that I do because it seems more, errr… spiritually respectful.
For instance, I never use abalone shells for ashtrays, and will rescue other peoples’ abalone ashtrays if at all possible. (“There! I scrubbed it out and oiled it up, isn’t it pretty? You can put it with your shell collection!”)
I never put out cigarettes in potted plants either. I don’t eat beef with milk because it feels like it’s disrespectful. (eating the gift and the giver at the same time.) There’s a thousand things like that, I guess that comes from being basically an animist. But I don’t do them because I think the various spirits will get me, it’s just out of respect.
As far as “conventional” superstitions go, there’s the salt and the woodknock, and then “bread and butter” if you’re walking with a friend and are separated by a lightpost or something. (to prevent the friendship being symbolically separated, I guess bread and butter are the ultimate duo?)
I will not cut my hair on Friday. Something to do with it being the day of Venus.
Saying “God forbid!” when speaking of a possible disaster.
And of course I pick up a lot of pennies. Really, I just have a thing for copper. (Plus if somebody needs me to make them a charm of some kind, I always have their birthyear.)
I doubt I’ll be able to resist checking back in when I remember the other twelve thousand things.
I will sometimes take advantage of Murphy’s law as if it was a true law of the universe, and will plan for things I want to go wrong. I will also try to get the fortune out of my fortune cookie without breaking it, even though I know that won’t make it come true (and most fortunes suck these days, anyways).
Like I said in the other thread, I don’t actually believe in any of these, but they’re quaint little rituals that make me feel connected to the past and kinda add a bit of folksy colour to the day:
[ul]
[li]Knocking on wood, and I too will tap my head if there’s no real wood around. (Because I’m as thick as two short planks).[/li][li]Throwing salt over my left shoulder with my right hand if I’ve spilt some salt.[/li][li]Not putting up an umbrella indoors.[/li][li]Not walking under ladders unless I have to, though this is mainly practical. However, sometimes if a street is really busy everyone’ll be avoiding the ladder, so it creates a handy space to nip past the dawdlers. [/li][li]Not putting shoes on a table. This comes up more often than you’d expect in a house with a teething puppy.[/li][li]Saying ‘Good morning Mr. Magpie. How is your lady wife today?’ if I see a single magpie.[/li][li]Always freeing ladybirds (ladybugs) that are somewhere they don’t want to be.[/li][li]Letting a money spider run across the palm of my hand.[/li][li]Taking my Christmas decorations down on the 6th of January.[/li][li]I used to pick pennies up off the floor for luck, not money, but can’t be bothered any more.[/li][/ul]
I’m not consistent with any of them and the first three are the only ones cause me any unease if not done, but it’s very slight unease. I might be superstitious about mirrors breaking if it didn’t happen to me so bloody often… hey, that could explain a lot!
I think I grew up among lots of really superstitious people - I remember being told off by several people, grown-ups and kids, for stepping on the cracks in the pavement.
If you’re driving in your car and listening to a Phillies game and the Phillies are in the middle of a rally…
Do Not stop the car.** Do Not** turn into a side street. Just keep on driving straight down the road you’re on. As long as you’re driving straight down the road the Phillies’ rally will continue.
Then again, this is not a superstition. This is a scientific fact.
My only superstitions were the ones my drama teacher in primary school taught us. I loved them, it was all part of the fun of acting! I pretty much gave up on them as I got older (though whenever I’m in a theatre I’ll avoid saying ‘Macbeth’, whistling or wearing green out of nostalgia). The only one that stuck with me is not saying ‘good luck’, I go with ‘break a leg’ or ‘bocca di lupo’ instead.
Glad to see I’m not the only one who did a spit take
I’m not aware of any superstitions of mine per se, though I’ve got quite a few computer-related idiosynchrasies that are probably superstitious-like.
For example, hiding a progress bar in the background and not looking at it makes the process end faster. Don’t ask me why, it just does.
Naming a computer something impressive (like Thor, or God, whatever) will make it crash much more often out of sheer electronic bloody-mindedness - hence why the computers on my network all have names like Rustbucket or Crashy. If you name them that way, they try harder.
Things like that.
Oh, I also never light a cigarette while waiting for a bus/tram/subway/taxi, because it will cause the bus to appear immediately and I’ll have to toss my cig after a single puff and that’s worse than not smoking at all. But that’s just a fact of life, not superstition.
I don’t buy bulk food or meds for a sick animal. They seem to die as soon as its dilivered. Its stupid, I know, but when I have a sick/old/dieing critter in my hands now…I buy small amounts of what is needed and they don’t die,
I have turned sports games off because, when I wasn’t watching, my team got the lead and as soon as I started watching my team started playing badly. I will switch back to the game to get the score and the opposing team will inevitably score, forcing me to completely turn it off.
I never knock on wood, but I do knock on my own head if I say something like “this will be easy” or “nothing bad will happen with this” or “I never get sick” or the like. Why tempt fate?
My husband will pick up pennies he finds that are “heads,” but will kick over a “tails” until it is “heads” for the next person to find. I think this is a very sweet thing to do.
I never say “good luck” for anything, but use “break a leg” instead for everything. Sometimes people look at me oddly for this.
I make it a point to NOT look at winning lotto numbers. Because, if I do, I’m quite certain those are the numbers I would of picked had I played. Especially if it has the number 13 in it.
