Friday, May 13, 2011

Friggartriskaidekaphobia...

I’ve never been particularly superstitious but I do have a newfound respect for friggartriskaidekaphobia! “Friggar” is the Norse god for Friday and “triskaideka” for #13.

It just so happens that today my post will not reflect the 5:15 am deadline I self impose. I was up at 5 am but I could not write a post because the blogger site was down! Not on Thursday the 12th or Wednesday the 11th, no, just my luck, the site went down on Friday the 13th!

According to one stress management center nearly 20 million Americans suffer from a fear of Friday the 13th. 20 million plus one, with my bad luck on blogger today! Sometimes people are so paralyzed by their fear they won’t get out of bed, or they’ll significantly change their normal routine.

I did get out of bed (Seminary teaching duties) but my normal routine was thwarted by inability to access the blogger site. In further bad luck, my Thursday post disappeared, but maybe they’ll fix that. If not, just trust me that it was remarkable, surely my best post ever. A literary masterpiece! :)

Apparently the Greeks and some Spanish-speaking countries consider Tuesday the 13th, not Friday, as a day of bad luck. Tuesday gets the bad rap for them because the fall of Constantinople, marking the end of the Byzantine Empire, happened on a Tuesday back in 1453.

So the weekday (Friday? Tuesday?) can be argued but there’s usually no dispute that 13 can be an unlucky number. Well, except in Sikhism, where the number 13 is considered lucky. So, maybe blogger was working today in India! Actually, I’d better post before I jinx things and the site breaks down again!