A tractate on Friday the 13th.

[Andail]

Hello, dear forumites, it ares I, Andaile.

Some of you may have noticed that today is Friday 13th. At least if you're that kind of person who works, studies or goes outside regularly; otherwise you might not care much for dates, or other extra-basemential events. Yes, that's a proper word, look it up in a dictionary.
According to Wikipedia, Friday 13th is considered a bad day in "English-, French- and Portuguese-speaking countries around the world"; other regions hold other dates as particularly unlucky. In Greece, for instance, it's Tuesday 13th instead, and in Italy people are extra precautious on Friday the 17th. This means that if you're really superstitious, you can avoid exposing yourself to the mysteriously unmotivated wrath of the time-gods by just crossing a few borders.

Before I actually put something personal in this post, I'd like to take the opportunity to tell you that being afraid of Friday 13th is handily called paraskavedekatriaphobia, which you have to be a proper word-geek to actually memorise.
Why all this lengthy paraskavedekatriaphobia-trivia, you might ask yourself, if you actually managed to memorise that darn word, a question I now feel obliged to answer.
Let me list the events of my day.

1. I can't sleep, despite being exhausted and hung-over. The people in the apartment I've chosen to spend the night in snore too much, and it's too hot, and too crowded.

2. Restless, I get up to check my mobile phone at 5 in the morning, only to find two recently recieved voice messages; one from my girlfriend who is pissed off because I haven't called her for too long; the other from the police who tell me my stolen car has been found.

3. I didn't know my car had been stolen. Apparently the thieves haven't managed to start the engine, so the car has only moved a couple of meters, now blocking the street to my school (where I had parked it the night before) in a disorderly unlawful fashion.

4. I miss the bus, and decide to walk 45 minutes to the school, dehydrated and tired, to move the car myself, as no towing companies answer my calls at this early hour. For some reason the police had no interest in helping me with this simple task; instead they have just tied a neat bow around the side-view mirror with their police tape, as if this would prevent further thievery, or help me identify the car, or serve any bloody purpose at all.

5. The car is broken into (loose cables and plastic debris, you get the idea) but can be pushed back into its parked position, although I'm too light and/or weak to do this myself, since the street is sloping slightly upwards. Several people decline to help me push it, although I am still dressed in my fancy suit and must appear very decent.
Not many people pass by on this street at 6 in the morning. Eventually a woman and her child agree to assist me in this labour. The street is now free from my murdered metal darling.

6. I go home, which takes almost an hour by bus. The communications between home and school are worthless. Which is why I enjoy going by car so much.

7. I phone my girlfriend, who is upset with me. Added to that, there has just been a major gas-leak in her block in Benidorm, and she has just been abruptly evacuated by the police. Then the connection just dies, and I turn instantly worried something terrible has happened.

8. An hour later, I can call her again. She's technically ok. I call around for a company that can tow my car to some garage.

9. At 9 am I call my colleague, who tells me my boss is annoyed because I haven't showed up at work. I mumble something about force majeur, then go to bed.

10. I sleep for a few hours. I wake up and check my job e-mail. An angry mother has complained about the grade I've given her daughter. I realise I've accidentally given the student a too low grade in English, and understandably she and her entire family now hate me.

11. I call my boss. I apologise for my absence. Since there are no classes today (the kids left yesterday) I only miss some evaluation-workshop-crap-thingy.

12. I visit the garage, located in the slums of my town, to which my car is supposed to have been towed, although of course it hasn't yet, since everything works in slow-motion in this branch, and I leave the car keys to some shady ex-convict who’s dressed up as a car mechanic. He mumbles something about wanting extra payment; “for what?” I inquire, and then he forgets about it. "I'll call you on Tuesday", he shouts as he walks away.

13. I return home again. I sleep some more hours. Write this crap.

How's your day been?

[LimpingFish]

Sunshine and birdsong!

Though I am ill, and coughing up phlegm...and the heat is killing me.

...

/faints

[Nacho]

Here the bad day is tuesday as well...

As a member of the Spanish Skeptic Society, I don' t really care.

[GarageGothic]

I didn't even realise it was Friday the 13th and haven't been out of the house at all today. Well, only 15 more minutes for something bad to happen. Hmm, maybe I should backup some of my stuff.

Edit (at midnight): Ok, I officially made it through - didn't even spill the coffee which happens most other days.

[radiowaves]

Officially, Friday is considered the bad day, but as for me, it is Tuesday. Always the Tuesday, the day you feel most tired, have some important jobs to do and bad news come to your way, the time where you stay longer in all kinds of annoying facilities like school etc.

As for today. khm, yesteday, the day went quite easy... Except my mom yelled at me for two hours because I still havent taken about 100 bottles, a huge pile, to a specific bottle recycling center which is located some 100 meters from my home... Finally I gave in and took the bottles.
I woke up early and planned to do some work but instead I've been writing e-mails and stuff almost all day. Went into city to buy my stuff, but that was regular, had a bike trip afterwards.


A normal day, i guess, nothing overly spectacular.

[SSH]

should that be treatise?

[Stupot]

I've managed to write a grand total of 500 words about Mussolini's rise to power in the last 12 hours.
If ever I had a bad day, this is it...

^{fucking facebook}

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Friday the 13th is a great day if you enjoy horror films.

Which I do.

[jetxl]

Andail I had days like that so many times before that I learned to quickly forget them.
I can still remember parts of wensday which is an average day in the life of.

Wensday 0:00 a.m. my parents house. I'm still awake working behind the computer trying to find a program I threw away some time ago, and now beating myself  up about doing so. I'm trying to sleep but can't. Partly because it's hot, partly because I had nightshifts last week and haven't slept normal since, partly because I can't let go of that program. I boot up my computer again and check 14 backup cd's though I'm almost sure I never made a backup of it. Still, I could have put it in a zip file so I'm going through all of them. No luck, so I prowl over the internet in search of the program. Though I can find plenty of hacked versions I can't find an original. Emule, yes Emule!1111!! saves the day, though the download speed is sloooow. The birds whissle, it's getting light outside so I'm going back to sleep for a second time. I think I have a weird dream about being late for something and there are people reminding me of this and events that delay me more. It ends with standing in line at the airport where they tell me to stand in another line instead of letting me go through the gate and then the like turns into a foodcourt where they don't sell the food on display because it's not ready. And then it turns out to become a market place.
I wake up too tired so I roll over and sleep again. I wanted to go to the local government office to turn in a form but they are open till 12:30 a.m. and it's now 1:00 p.m. This happened yesterday and the day before as well.
The rest of the day I have this feeling I have to do something that I shouldn't forget. Altough there are plenty of this I have to do, I avoided those things so many times before that there isn't any rush. Still I have the feeling all through the day.
The download is ready, yet it turns out that it wasn't what I was looking for. Sometimes things only look usefull in my mind. Bummer.
11:00 p.m. I'm going home. In the train on my way I call a friend asking if he's going out tonight. I want the conversation to be as short as posible because I hate it when people call in the train, and now feel like a hypocrit. He asks me suprised "why". I awnser him very general "because it's night". I then look at my watch and realize it's wensday, not thursday, the night we usually go out. He gives the phone to his girlfriend who asks me the same question. I awnser the same. She then tells me she still has tons of things to do for school, that her boyfriend has troubles with his asthma and might not be going tomorrow too and that I can eat at their place tomorrow but I decline (I ate healthy at my parents place all week, and I was looking forward to something drenched in grease). Then she asks me the same things we already talked about over msn. Fearing the prepayed amount of money on my phone is almost depleted I make sure my awnser are as short as possible, making me feel like a douchebag. She thinks something weird is going on so she keeps pressing. Meanwhile my male pride doesn't want to admit to them I called them on the wrong day. All and all it was an awkward call.
12:00 p.m. I have to walk home for another hour because the bus drivers are on strike (AGAIN!). I don't mind since the walk is quite serine and smooth.
12:50 I notice the lights are still on at home and when I come closer I notice there was a barbeque and a party is still going on. Shit, I whished now that my friends did want to go out. My housemates are part of a fraternity and there is now a large group of drunken, dancing, shirts-tucked-into-pants-wearing 19+ year olds that judged me the moment I walked in for who I am from now till eternitity by my dreadlocks, scruffy beard and baggy pants. I quickly push them aside, not bothering to look for my housemates, retreating to my room next to the living room. I think my house mates dont like me because I don't bother with them (which might have the same negative effect as playing a gameboy on vacation) and skipped cleaning the kitchen and living room so many times that I'm now off the cleaning roster. In my defence I havent used the kitchen in months appart from making tea and washing my hands, leaving me to clean up the bread crumbs on the floor, the noodles and rotten veggies in the sink and the dirty pots and pans on the stove. So fuck it. I also had a heated discussion with two house mates about something very silly, but they just want to bully me into. Since then one guy doesn't look into my eyes anymore. He's a dominant and subborn ass anyway. He looks cool but isn't that interesting underneath. And he reminds me of the kinda guy who, when grown up, has no problem beating his trophy wife as long as the neighbours won't find out.
Anyway the music they play at the party isn't bad but they can't leave the playlist alone and songs don't last longer that a minute. I counter with a brand new Flogging Molly's vynil record which works out perfectly. Things subdue at 3:30. Again no sleep... Same goes for thursday.

And this is as I remember an ok day. Nothing bad happenen. Nothing bad happened on this friday eighter.

It's saterday 1:09 a.m. and I'm not feeling sleepy.

[Lionmonkey]

Friday the 13-th is my lucky day! Maybe because it's not for anyone else.

[ildu]

Now that I think about it, Friday was a good day for me, despite a few setbacks. I managed to completely rip open the crotch area of my best pair of pants as there's a sharp-edged gearshift on the level bar on my bike. And I also twisted my ankle while skateboarding so badly that I couldn't walk come saturday, and had to skip my cousin's university graduation. Otherwise, it wasn't a bad day at all.

[Andail]

Ildu, you lucky bastard

[Pumaman]

Wow Andail, that truly is a Friday 13th.

All that happened to me was the neighbour's screaming baby keeping me up all night with its incessant crying. But I'm sure in a few years time it will have grown up into a kid that can nick my car, so maybe this is a sign of things to come.

[voh]

My Friday the 13th was good, as the Dutch national footy team killed the French 4 to 1, which makes it more than just a good day, it makes it an awesome day ^_^

[Lionmonkey]

Everyone of us must have their own Friday the 13-th. Actually, you always get some little inconveniences, which gradually grow into some bigger trouble. And a couple of them can transform into some dark unhappiness in your mind. The trruth is that this happens every day. But there some days, of which you take notes. And then it looks like a cursed day.


The secret of happy life is to take everything lightly. For example, Andail hasn't slept enought, he got some trouble with his car, many people hate him now and he's about to lose his job. But it could have actually been worse. He could have lost his car/his leg/his potency. Try living for a day or two without using any of them. You will see, how hard and awkward it is. And you will see how happy you actually are. Enjoy every second you are given. Because your time may soon end. Read and try to imagine, how it feels to have your skull slowly sawed in two halfs. And be happy that you have not and most likely will neve experience this pain.

Remember: Having to eat your own hand in order to survive, only to be killed slowly later is worse that what you are feeling now.

------------------------------------------------------

P.L.P.S. mode off.

[evenwolf]

Friday was awesome!  I got wasted on my porch swigging Killian's Irish Red.   Then my friend called and asked if I wanted to watch the Hulk.    So he picked me up and we grabbed some chicken ( a place called Guthries, which was oh so very tasty ).    While we were in line at the theater, I was still very drunk and I dared my friend to ask for a ticket to "The Indellible Bulk".

He mumbled something like that to his cashier while I definitely said "One for the Indellible Bulk please."   The girl giggled and gave me my ticket.  She asked me if I wanted to donate a dollar to some charity and get my name on the wall.  "Oh not today!   The wall looks full.   Too full... Looks like you guys may need a new wall."    I was so drunk and my friend hadn't said anything.   We walked into the theater, watched the movie, and I made more wisecracks than usual throughout the movie.    When we got up to leave, I realized I had LOST MY WALLET.      I used a keychain flashlight to try to find it.... with no luck.  It was extra embarrassing because the keychain moos constantly while you use it.  And the entire audience sat through the credits hoping for a surprise....  so sticking my face on the floor and shining my mooing light at people's feet was sort of a disaster.



I was on my way out of the theater to ask the staff if a wallet had been turned in.   Then my friend told me I had been searching the wrong seat.   So I went back and found it on the lower part of the armrest.   Score! 

As for other notorious numerical days...

I remember 06.06.06 being a rather dull day.   Oh I asked a gas attendant how his day had been and he yelled "I'm not superstitious!"   ** I retold this event to my dad two years after the fact and he asked me "So did you buy $6.66 of gas?    I said that I just bought a drink... then he huffed and puffed and was furious that I bought a bottled drink two years ago.     That's my dad..

[m0ds]

I had a lucky/normal one! But poo! Stan Winston died a couple of days later

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7458478.stm

[PsychicHeart]

my friday the 13th involved severely hurting my left leg while attempting to jump over a closed train turnstile,
as well as drunken guitar hero, which i learned i am terrible at.

fucking friday the 13th's.