Superstitions and Traditions

There are many reasons one should hold his/her breath. The first, and in my opinion most common, superstitious reason is to hold your breath when driving through a tunnel. If you hold your breath the whole time and make it wish, it will come true. This task can be quite dangerous, depending on how long the tunnel is and how fast the driver drives. I’ve been in some situations where my face begins to turn blue, my palms begin to sweat, and my breath is about to run out. I may be exaggerating a bit, but I’ve pushed myself in this situation before to ensure that my wish comes true!

Another time to hold your breath that has more serious repercussions is when walking past a cemetery. If you do not hold your breath, you run the risk of breathing in the spirit of someone who recently passed away. Yikes! I sure as heck do not want to breath in any spirits!

One superstition that I recently heard of is that it is bad luck to see the back of an ambulance. In order to rid yourself of this misfortune, you must pinch your nose and hold your breath until you see a brown or black dog. Now, “what if I don’t see a brown or black dog,” you ask. Well, I guess you have bad luck and will be needing to call an ambulance for yourself!

Like any normal human being, I get the occasional ringing in my ears.  I can never remember the superstition, so I decided to look it up.  Here is what I found:

When your left ear rings, somebody talks well about you.  When your right ear rings, somebody talks poorly about you.  The way to figure out who this somebody is, is to quickly go through the list of names that comes into your head (some believe that you say this list out loud in order for it to really work, but I don’t see how the list can change depending on whether or not you say it out loud), and the last name you think of/say before the ringing stops is the person who is either giving you a bad name or speaking well about you.

So, that’s why my right ear is always ringing?!

I believe in signs. I don’t believe in many superstitions, (maybe a few but not many), but I definitely believe in signs. I try not too, but sometimes they just make sense. I’ve experienced/witnessed these signs in the past. Here are a few examples:
- a necklace from a boyfriend breaks…two weeks later, break up
- a black beetle is found inside an engagement ring box…less than a month later, the wedding’s off, the relationship’s over
- a black cat is seen sitting on the steps where you and your boyfriend usually meet after class…one week later, break up
- everyone around you is breaking off their long term relationships and you’re in one…hopefully nothing

My cousin told me once “If you like a boy and you want him to think about you, put a picture of him under your pillow while you sleep and he’ll dream of you.”  I haven’t tested her theory, but I’d be interested to know how it works.  How could I ever figure out if it works though.  I mean, if I like a boy, there is absolutely no way I’m going to ask him to tell me whether or not he dreamt about me.  I can just imagine how that conversation would go:

“Hey, (insert boy name).  Did you dream about me last night?”
“Um…no.  Why?”
“Well I slept with a picture of you under my pillow so that you would.”
“Oh.  Okay.  Hey, I can’t be your friend anymore.  You’re creepy.”

Yeah…that’s about right.  I guess I could try it out on my boyfriend, but the results could be skewed since we’re already together and he could be dreaming about me anyway.  If someone is willing to test it out, let me know if it works!

I don’t think I ever actually knew the correct steps/chants for the rain dance. My sisters and I used to go outside and dance in circles singing God knows what. I guess that’s why we never made it rain…

Anyway, one of these days I would like to learn the traditional Native American rain dance. Apparently there are many tribes that still perform the ritual today. I just think it would be such a fun experience to participate in a real rain dance; to get all dressed up and learn the zig zag patterns of the dance.

I don’t think there are many people in the world who actually believe in a human dance having the power to make it rain, but then again, I don’t think there are many people who know the correct dance.

I’ve heard about it in the movies and such, but I never knew that real people actually had these…

lucky underwear.

I found out today at lunch. I was talking to one of my friends about how her finals were going. She responded with a sigh and told me that her lucky pen ran out of ink. Our other friend we were eating with chimed in with a “OH! I have something lucky I use on tests too…my boxers!” I’m glad that he didn’t go too far into detail about the power that this pair of boxers supposedly has, but thinking about how many tests he’s had this week was enough to make me stop eating.

I was trying to think if I had anything “lucky” that I had with me during tests, performances, etc. and I couldn’t think of a single thing. Hmmm…I should get one.

It’s 5 a.m. It’s your birthday. You’re in a deep sleep dreaming about ice cream and jolly jumpers. All of a sudden:

“duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh YOU SAY IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY! duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh IT’S MY BIRTHDAY TOO, YEAH!, etc.”

Wait, maybe not everyone has this experience on their birthday. Anyway, it’s something that I’ve grown up with and grown to love and look forward to every year - the Beatles being the first to wish me a happy birthday. For as long as I can remember, whenever one of my sisters, my mom, or I have a birthday, my dad is sure to wake up the entire house by playing this song for the special birthday girl on max volume before he leaves for work. Of course, we make sure to return the favor on his birthday! I don’t really know how or why he started doing this, but I don’t think my birthday would mean anything without it. This year, on my 21st birthday, I will not be at home. I will be at school, in the middle of training for my job. I’ll be expecting a phone call and a song bright and early though…and if I don’t get one, my dad will be in for a real beating! Okay, probably not, but I’ll pout like crazy, which to my Daddy will hurt just as much as getting a beating.

Superstitions in sports are unsurprisingly common. I was talking to a few friends who played sports in high school and each of them told me one of the superstitions they followed. Some of them were sentimental and made sense, while others were just silly habits that slowly turned into “good luck.” See if you can determine which are which.

- Cross Country - My roommate was telling me about how she used to tuck her shoelaces into the back of her shoes during meets. At first, it was for the practicality of keeping her shoelaces completely out of the way, but during one meet she forgot to tuck them in. Coincidentally (or consequently) she did not do very well. After that, she decided to continue tying her shoelaces and tucking them in the same exact way each time she competed, and at her following meet, she placed in the top 10 for the very first time! Now, that’s gotta mean luck.

- Football - I had a few good friends on the football team at my high school who told me about their locker room rituals. Before each home game, the team would gather around and listen to the coach’s pep talk, and then as they walked out, each player would hit (nicely) a jersey that hung above the doorway. The jersey belonged to a player who died a few years earlier and hitting it acknowledged that player and asked for his blessing (or help) during the game.

- Basketball - One of my best friends has a specific pattern of dribbling the ball each time he steps up to the free throw line. Bounce, bounce, spin, bounce, shoot! If he doesn’t follow this exactly, there’s no way the ball will go in!

According to trivia-library.com:
Before the invention of mirrors, man gazed at his reflection, his “other self,” in pools, ponds, and lakes. If the image was distorted, it was a mark of impending disaster. The “unbreakable” metal mirrors of the early Egyptians and Greeks were valued items because of their magical properties. After glass mirrors were introduced, it was the Romans who tagged the broken mirror a sign of bad luck. The length of the prescribed misfortune, 7 years, came from the Roman belief that man’s body was physically rejuvenated every 7 years, and he became, in effect, a new man.

Well, I broke a mirror when I was about 15 years old. I am now 20, (21 in August!), which means that I have a solid year of misfortune left in my life. Or not… I am pretty sure that any misfortune I’ve run into during these past 6 years has been completely unrelated to the fact that I broke a small hand mirror. This superstition is just a bit too far fetched for me! Better luck next time, Romans.

As far as superstitions dealing with mirrors go, though, there is one that has made me afraid ever since I was a little kid. To this day, I have not been willing to look into a mirror and recite “Bloody Mary” three times. (For more info on this SCARY legend, visit http://www.castleofspirits.com/bloodymary.html)

I opened an umbrella in a store the other day. I just wanted to see how big it was. Because I did that, are all the people who were in the store at that time cursed? Does this superstition only pertain to umbrellas being opened in a house? After doing some research, I found that the superstition pertains to an umbrella being opened indoors, so I apologize to anyone who was in Eagle Rock’s Target on April 28, 2008 at around 6 p.m…it looks like we’re all in for quite a bit of bad luck!

The most common explanation of this superstition that I found was that back when umbrellas were used mainly as protection against the sun, opening one indoors would be to insult the local sun god and invite his wrath on everyone in your household (or in my case, Target).

Apparently it isn’t always bad luck to open an umbrella inside. According to some, it’s only considered bad if any of the following apply:
-The umbrella was a gift.
-The umbrella is black.
-The umbrella has never been used outdoors.
-There is a sick person in the house.

Again, my apologies to those unfortunate Target shoppers (and workers)!