A Bad Day

Avoiding black cats today.  Just to be safe I'm carrying my pellet gun in case I cross paths with one of the shadowy pawed spawns from Hell-o Kitty.  The gun would of course require nine shots.  One for every dark demon feline life.  I'm not normally a violent soul, but any rational, thinking person is aware that today is Friday The... oops, almost said it.  Walking under ladders is to be avoided today as well.  (If you're the kind of person that routinely finds themselves walking under ladders.)

Breaking a mirror is seven years bad luck.  Which doesn't sound really difficult to avoid either, but I've got a face like the goalie on a darts team, so I usually stay clear of mirrors regardless.  People in glass houses should sleep in today.

What they shouldn't do is open an umbrella indoors - that's a bad idea.  I don't really know the derivation of this one or what sad sap originally discovered the mayhem that ensues once the rain-deflecting mechanism is activated prior to exiting the building.  You couldn't really blame the guy, considering the whole point of the umbrella is preventing oneself from getting rained on, so going outside - in the rain - and then opening the brella seems like a bass-ackwards thought process.  It's like: "Did you bring protection?"  "Yes, but I'm going to wait until after to put it on."  That's at least 18 years of bad luck!

In 1857, a Polish man by the name of Jess Jorskrewd was seen opening his umbrella prior to leaving Oliver Wood's house, despite warnings from Mr. Wood himself, informing him that awful things happen when men prematurely pop their canopy.  However, Wood was known to be a habitual liar; that's the knock on Wood.  So Jorskrewd paid no attention, carelessly walking outside as it rained black cats and dogs, though he remained dry as a bone.  He walked along the cobbled stone sidewalk, stepping on several cracks and, unbeknownst to him, breaking his poor mother's back every time.

Jorskrewd continued walking along blissfully ignorant, until he almost collided with a man wearing stilts, but instead went right underneath him.  He recognized the man to be his neighbor, Winston Vladimir Ladder III.  It was only after Jorskrewd walked under Ladder that he noticed who it was, and while looking up to say hello, unintentionally walked into the street where a horse and buggy almost ran him over, but veered off at the last second, spilling some of its cargo in the process.  It was a crate full of rabbits' feet and horseshoes, oddly enough.  Jorskrewd had no use for foots nor footwear, so he continued walking in the rain.

Eventually he came to a homeless man standing at an intersection who was thoroughly soaked and disheveled.  (I was looking to use the word 'disheveled' today.)  Jorskrewd said to the man, "Looks like you could use an umbrella."  The homeless man's eyes filled with joy, and then Jorskrewd continued, "Sure hope you've got $3 so you can buy this one."  The soaked man's joy turned back to grief, but he begrudgingly reached into his stereotypical homeless man trenchcoat and retrieved three crumpled up dollar bills with which to purchase the umbrella.  It was Seymour Mirror's last three dollars.  So then, thanks to Jorskrewd, Mirror was broke.

Without protection, Jess Jorskrewd continued walking until he came across a paper boy and, since he had a little extra spending money, decided to buy a newspaper.  While scanning the headlines, he noticed the date.

"Oh no, it's Friday The..." at which point a piano containing an anvil, an anchor, a couple of cinderblocks and Wiley Coyote fell from the sky and on top of Jess Jorskrewd.

I guess the moral of the story is don't be superstitious - it's bad luck.