Friday the 13th Backlash

I gotta tell ya–I am pretty determined not to buy into any of the “Friday the 13th” bad luck superstitions. It seems dangerous to me to get started believing that numbers and days coinciding in a certain way could cause bad things to happen. But sometimes I wonder . . . .

For example, last Friday I went out to run to the ATM to deposit a couple of checks. I pulled into a parking space and sat there for a few minutes, talking to my husband on the phone. While I was chatting, the driver of the car parked next to me approached her (huge honking) SUV and threw open the door to get in–nailing my outside passenger mirror with an audible thunk. I saw her look down at the place where the edge of her door had connected to the back of my mirror’s frame, pause a second, and then get in her car and prepare to drive away. I disconnected my call and sauntered around to the space between our cars, pointedly looked at my mirror, saw that there was a huge (3-4 inch) jagged crack in the frame, and looked at her. She shook her head, rolled down her window, and said, “that was there.” I said, “No, it was not there.” She said, in a very sarcastic voice, “well, sooooorrrrryyy!” And she drove away without offering to be responsible for the damage she had caused. I let her go, because (a) I didn’t want to deal with her, and (b) her SUV was a company vehicle with “Travel Counsellors” written on it in big letters, so I figured I could just look them up in the phone book and call if I changed my mind. But they aren’t in the phone book, and I can’t find them listed on the internet as having an office in my area. Friday the 13th?

Next puzzle: my son Sean had an appointment for his 6-month dental checkup last Friday. At the dentist he has gone to all his life, using the same insurance plan we have been on since around 1993. The dentist’s office called me yesterday to report that, of the 7 members of our family registered there, Sean and only Sean was suddenly being listed as having some other dentist for his primary care needs. I called the insurance company. They confirmed that, yes indeed, we had changed Sean’s dentist in 2005. Except that, well, we hadn’t. He’s been going to this same dentist every 6-7 months forever. They could not explain it, but agreed to retroactively switch Sean back to our regular dentist so that his exam would be covered. Friday the 13th?

Anyone else have a weird, inexplicable, or completely aggravating experience last Friday? Or did anyone have something amazingly great happen on Friday the 13th? If so, I’d like to hear about it!