Doesn’t look like this thread’s been done in the recent past.
What superstitions do you have? General rituals you do before heading onto tennis courts, say, or traditional superstitions?
I’m an adult and reasonably rational and well-read. Yet… I don’t like umbrellas opened indoors. We have an office debate about whether our vestibule is “inside” (I say yes). I don’t walk under ladders. I don’t wear it much myself, but when I see others wearing fringe I think they’re in for good luck. I don’t like the thought of anything written in my hand floating around among strangers (checks excluded, I guess). I do sort of believe that found pennies are good luck
I’ll bet I’ll remember more as others confess…
Spilled salt, the number 13, black cats… those don’t bug me.
I still get that eerie feeling of impending doom when somebody jinxes me, i.e. says the exact same thing as the exact same time as I do.
And I think it’s just asking for trouble if I go out of the house in raggedy underwear. Nice new undies keep you safe! BTW, does anyone else have the irrational fear of getting into a car wreck with a tampon in? Somehow the thought of somebody else removing my tampon totally creeps me out. Yes, I do spend time worrying about this.
I don’t know if this is a superstition, but I can’t sleep without my feet being covered. This goes back to my childhood theory that monsters eat you from the feet up, and they can’t lift the blankets up to get to them. It’s in the monster book o’ rules or something. If I feel my feet uncovered when I sleep I get a cold chill in my blood.
I find myself saying “kina hora.” It’s Yiddish for “evil eye,” and I grew up hearing my grandparents and their siblings constantly using it. It’s like knocking wood:
I don’t have any traditional superstitions, like black cat/number 13, etc. I do have a couple of my own superstitions though.
My friend and I get together to play games a lot. Board games, card games, dice games. We both feel that if we get up from the table mid-game, we change our luck. So if my game is going well, I’ll sit there with an empty coffee cup and a full bladder, but I won’t move until the game is over. If my game is going poorly, I’ll get up a lot.
I used to count syllables a lot. If a sentence ended on an odd number, I felt it was bad luck. If someone consistently ended sentences with an odd number of syllables, I got a bad feeling about that person.
It used to be whenever I said something that foresaw the future as good I would knock on wood, real wood, plastic won’t work. If there was no wood I would knock on my head.
It has progressed to the point that if I even think one of those thoughts I will knock on wood until I feel I have knocked enough wood. I’ve even caught myself blaming not knocking on wood for bad things that happen.
This superstition seems to work most of the time, probably a placebo/nocebo type of thing.
When I first started dealing, I had a real aversion to wishing a player “good luck”, especially if they were a nice person, because I was convinced I was bringing them bad luck by doing so. But the pit boss forced the issue.
I still think it’s bad luck to wish players good luck, but if you don’t do it, you can lose your job. No shit.
I don’t know if this amounts to a superstition, but whenever we come into a bit of good luck, financially or in any other way, I feel like something is waiting to strike us down. Sort of a “pride goeth before a fall” kind of thing. I tend to get uneasy if things are going very well, do a lot of checking over my shoulder. I probably get it from my mom, who has a tendency to look for something to worry about in every new situation, no matter how hopeful the situation is.
Oh man! I do this all the time. I can’t help it, but I know it’s annoying.
Also, when I played bells in the pit orchestra in marching band, I hated it when one hand got to play more on a song than the other.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that does this, tatertot. I can’t sleep with my arms or legs hanging off the bed, my childhood theory being that the monsters can’t reach all the way to the top of the mattress. I’ve actually tried to make myself, and it ends up creeping me out too bad, and I have to pull them back on.
I also can’t step into a bed from right beside it. I have to jump in from a few steps away. Well, if you stand right beside it, they’ll reach out and grab your ankles, won’t they!
Thank you. My SO has said to me on more than one (manny, manny) occasion, “What’s the matter with you? For God’s sake are you 31 or a really old looking 8?”
I’ve tried, I’ve really tried, but I just cannot be uncovered, nothing can be hanging off, and no way am I standing right next to the bed at night (daytime is safe).
I’m also a big “knock wood” person. No wood around? I knock on my “wooden” head (word of caution - don’t do that if you’ve been drinking, you can really hurt yourself - not that I’ve done that or anything ;))
For about a year my life has been absolutely full of coincidences. So many in fact that I have actually been able to predict events.
And because of this, whenever I’m feeling something icky, like something bad is going to happen, I will not tell anybody in fear that if I do, it will actually occur.
Like all sane persons, I agree with tatertot, Lucretia, and the others who take sensible measures to avoid being grabbed by the monsters under the bed.
I will also admit to putting my shoes and socks on left foot first, because to do otherwise would invite disaster. Sock, sock, shoe, shoe. No other way to do it if you want to make it through the day unharmed.
Of course the monsters under the bed can’t get you if you keep your feet covered! No problem there!
But you also have to make sure the closet door is properly closed to keep the boogeyman in! (Learned that one when I was a little kid. Never forgot it either!)
And sometimes those cracks in the sidewalk are dangerous too!
I will echo many others in saying that I leap onto my bed from the middle of the room. I also have to have my back covered by the blanket. (When I slept on a couch with my boyfriend one night it was nice because he slept behind me…phew! No monsters back there, even though he does look sort of monster like with his hairy chest…)
I knock on wood, too. I also never say that people should just die, because the last two times I did that, George Burns and Princess Diana died. I felt as if I had accidentally cursed them!! :^(
I never get out of bed unless the numbers on my clock add up to the number 7 (ex. 6:10, 8:44). If they don’t add up, it might ruin my whole day.
When I sing the national anthem at basketball games, I have to either have my hand over my heart or my fingers crossed so we win the games.
And now I conclude that I probably have some form of OCD since my life is full of “rituals”…everything mist be done in the right order every day or it drives me nuts.
I wish on loose eyelashes - if I catch an eyelash that’s fallen out I place it on the back of my hand, make a wish and blow it off my hand. If it blows off, I’ll get my wish. I also read tarot & check my horoscope every day. (but that’s more to waste time at work!)
I get paranoid about people touching my rune cards, so I keep them on a high shelf hidden by books that I love to read. It keeps the vibes in and away from people to screw with them.
- not that I’ve done that or anything ;))