Metadish, Fresh from NYC

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

“It’s been estimated that [U.S] $800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day because people will not fly or do business they would normally do,” said Donald Dossey, founder of the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina.

It seems as if ancient paranoia about Friday being a bad luck day and the number 13 being a bad luck number just naturally combined to make one super bad luck day a few times a year.  But why?

• Numerologists consider 12 a “complete” number. There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of Jesus.  In exceeding 12 by 1, Fernsler said 13’s association with bad luck “has to do with just being a little beyond completeness. The number becomes restless or squirmy.”  Shouldn’t that make every number past 13 all the more unlucky?

• More than 80 percent of high-rises lack a 13th floor. Many airports skip the 13th gate. Hospitals and hotels regularly have no room number 13.

• On streets in Florence, Italy, the house between number 12 and 14 is addressed as 12 and a half. In France socialites known as the quatorziens (fourteeners) once made themselves available as 14th guests to keep a dinner party from an unlucky fate.

As for Friday being a bad luck day that seems to stem mostly from Christian traditions.  Jesus was crucified on a Friday (I’m guessing he wasn’t all TGIF).  At least some biblical scholars believe Eve tempted Adam and got us all kicked out of Eden on a Friday.  Also, for some reason, a lot of people believe that Cain killed Abel on Friday the 13th.

Dossey believes that the fear of the number 13 goes back to the Norse religious beliefs.

Dossey traces the fear of 13 to a Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party at Valhalla, their heaven. In walked the uninvited 13th guest, the mischievous Loki. Once there, Loki arranged for Hoder, the blind god of darkness, to shoot Balder the Beautiful, the god of joy and gladness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow.

“Balder died and the whole Earth got dark. The whole Earth mourned. It was a bad, unlucky day,” said Dossey. From that moment on, the number 13 has been considered ominous and foreboding.

So if you run into a paraskevidekatriaphobiac make sure to show them some extra special love, until they leave then you can make fun of them for being a superstitious pussy.

Share This