In a year in which many days have felt as ominous as Friday the 13th, we now face an actual Friday the 13th — only the second one of 2020.
Though fear of the number 13 unsettles a few folks, 2020 has offered a number of omens (a blue moon on Halloween with Mercury in retrograde) that have compounded its image as the year that just won’t stop.
Like most superstitions, including seeing black cats and breaking mirrors, the roots of triskaidekaphobia — fear of the No. 13 — have “precipitating elements,” says psychiatry professor Anthony Tobia of the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
According to Norse mythology, for example, the god of mischief Loki arrived as the 13th guest to a dinner party where someone later died, he says.
“It’s mythology, but back then, this mythology was a religion, at least what was referred to as a religion,” Dr. Tobia said. “When we think about superstitions, they’re just a form of behavior.”
Tom Harrison is very familiar with one particular superstition as a form of behavior: a reluctance for walking under a ladder. He notes that the hesitancy stems from an ancient fear about a ladder’s triangular shape.
“I think the biggest issue with walking under a ladder is folks might get hit on the head with a paint can,” said Mr. Harrison, president and CEO of the Michigan Ladder Co., which has operated in the same plant in Ypsilanti since 1901.
“If anything, we’re more likely to be haunted in this old building,” he added.
Still, Mr. Harrison said, “It’s been just a crazy year. COVID is a big part of it, and having an election in the middle of it [the pandemic] didn’t help.”
Indeed. A study from the American Psychological Association last month showed that the nation had been “profoundly affected” by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the subsequent mental stress could “yield serious health and social consequences” for years.
This year has delivered many tangible causes for wariness and weariness including massive job losses, nationwide protests, record-setting wildfires and devastating tropical storms. So many weird and worrisome stories that might inspire a superstition. (Remember “murder hornets”?)
Just last week, in what might have been a fitting curtain call for the year, cellphone video footage showed a humpback whale breaching and appearing to swallow two kayakers off California’s Central Coast. The couple was safe but shaken, fully aware that anything is possible this year.
But superstition, bad luck or a series of unfortunate events won’t daunt Drew Glick, owner of Max & Louie’s New York Diner in San Antonio, Texas. He says he isn’t superstitious, but he is a germophobe.
“What’s the opposite of a dirty spoon?” he said, laughing. “We’re kind of an elevated spoon.”
Mr. Glick says they’ve employed hand sanitizer, new permanent glass partitions between booths, and a robot that’s normally used in surgical bays and on loan from a friend that uses light-based cleaning technology through his restaurant each night.
“We’re probably the cleanest restaurant in America,” Mr. Glick said.
But this being 2020, he’s not taking anything for granted.
“Our restaurant has not closed totally one day since this started back in March 14th or 15th,” he said, noting when the pandemic first hit Texas.
The day his restaurant was last closed? Friday the 13th.
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