Triskaidekaphobia has the country in the throes of fear today. More specificaly, paraskavedekatriaphobia (fear of Friday the 13th instead of just the number 13) Images of Jason(R) occur to some and I’m sure that sales of 60s era white hockey masks are selling like hotcakes. Any image of bad luck makes an appearance to others. If the superstition is still around that I had as a kid, there’s a lot of silly walks on sidewalks today. John Cleese would be proud.

(Don’t step on a crack.)

Fear is overstating it. Today is more like an a stranger that shows up in random places on the calendar. It knows all seasons and all months. It doesn’t wait for a special year (Feb 29) or skip a millenium (Feb 28, 3000 is followed by Mar 1, 3000). The only rule is that it must appear on a Friday. Sure, there are various movements afoot to fear the dreaded Monday the 13th (unless it’s Columbus Day and therefore a Federal holiday), but no one is afraid of Thursday the 13th. (Which occured on April 13th and July 13th this year, September 13th and December 13th, next year) Though folks in Greece and Spain are afraid of Tuesday the 13th. (Dum da DU-UM!)

Anyway, today is sort of an unofficial holiday honored by trying to pretend that an unseen force is trying to make this particular day extremely difficult more than any other day. What makes this force so insidious is that the cycle of ‘attack’ days are part of a 28 year cycle. By the time you get used to it, you’re gone. Very few make it through three complete cycles in this world.

Tomorrow, more than one person will express relieve for making it past another Friday the 13th as if a fortune teller told them that they would die on a Friday the 13th sometime in the future.

Before leaving, one Friday the 13th factoid you should know:

• Feb 13th, 1970, Black Sabbath’s first album released.

I know, your life is further enriched by Wikipedia and the perpetual calendar spreadsheet I created a couple years ago. Just had to mention all this.

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