by Linda Campbell Rehmann

Created on: January 06, 2009

I don't consider myself an incredibly superstitious person. Mildly, perhaps, but not incredibly. Oh sure, I always had to put on my left skate before my right, but superstitions in sports are endearing and expected. More significantly, I wrote a cryptic "Bruce Springsteen" on the bottom right hand corner of the back page of all of my university exams for good luck. Only once did a professor notice, tracing over the letters with his red pen and acknowledging it with a question mark. At least I didn't lose any points. For a while I would kiss my hand and touch the rearview mirror if I inadvertently ran a red light, or lift my feet in a car when crossing railroad tracks. I am proud to say that I have given up these irrational habits, all intended to bring the omnipotent "luck".

But the other night while watching a hockey game on TV I realized that I am not completely superstition-free. With 40 seconds left in the game, the Flyers up by one, my mother stated that there was not enough time for the opposing Canadiens to score. When the Habs tied it up with 32 seconds remaining, I blamed her and her insensitive, overconfident statement. Her jinx. How could she not realize that her proclamation was an obvious curse which immediately flew from our home in southern New Jersey, traversed several states at the speed of light, crossed the border and cleared customs with just enough time to reach the Molson Centre in downtown Montreal and change the course of a hockey game played by forty strangers? She has a lot to learn.

The exasperated response is universal when a jinx is uttered. A crowd of people might be waiting for a train and someone will state "This one is never late" to his travel companion. Immediately, surrounding heads snap back, mouths gape open and sigh as eyes stare skyward. Several people begin rapping their skulls with clenched knuckles in an attempt to undo the curse. The morning had been going so well, until this idiot decided to test fate with his arrogance. The gods will not be happy; the train will now be late. When my mom made her now-infamous statement, my husband and I reacted in much the same way. We yelled "Grandma!" as if she had just spent her retirement savings on lottery tickets and knocked our heads furiously in an attempt to nix the jinx before it escaped.

Aside from the ever present jinx, I have one remaining superstition. Whenever I see numbers repeated on a digital clock, I make a wish. I'm not sure where this superstition comes from, or

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