Merely Superstitious...

"Very superstitious, writing's on the wall
Very superstitious, ladder's 'bout to fall,
Thirteenth month old baby broke the lookin' glass,
Seven years of bad luck, the good things in your past..."  -Stevie Wonder


At seven years of age, I broke a mirror at my Greek best friend's house.  Her mother, an extremely superstitious women, called my mom and sent me home with my usual goody bag of treats (Little Debbie cakes, a juice box, other assorted snacks/junk food).  I don't recall being invited back over after that incident.  I don't recall if that's the approximate time my bad luck in life started, or if it was merely the beginning of my obsessions with superstition and/or OCD.

At 17 years of age, I was involved in a car accident on Friday the 13th.  The brakes on my 1996 Ford Taurus SHO (man, I loved that car) went out, and I rear-ended a man in a large F-350.  Luckily, no damage was done to his truck.  My car (and ego), however, were totaled.  The man turned out to be a regular customer at the restaurant where I worked, and I would see him every Friday and Saturday night for the next two years.  For the record, I never again drove on any Friday that fell on the 13th of a month until approximately two years ago.

Then, in 2008, my brush with bad luck and reinforcement with superstition altogether came back full force.  In December of 2008, I participated in an office White Elephant gift exchange.  Originally gifted a Brooks Brothers pinstripe tie, a co-worker swiped the tie and left me with a Voodoo Doll.  Not the New Orleans, Savannah type Voodoo Doll, but the cheap, super cheesy kind from an adult novelty store.  I found it amusing and set it up on my desk (still in the box) to keep around for entertainment when I had any extra unruly or outrageous customers.  Christmas and New Year's came and went without incident.  The Voodoo Doll sat inside its box collecting dust in the corner of my cubicle.


Image of the Voodoo Doll I Received from the White Elephant Gift Exchange

On February 28th, 2009, I suffered a freak accident which tore cartilage in my knee.  I attempted to suck it up and figured the pain would go away overnight, however, it didn't.  I eventually went to the Emergency Room, had x-rays, was given crutches and pain meds and sent on my way.  No one besides my mother and boyfriend at the time knew about my injury.  That Monday at work, the Voodoo Doll had a black pin (the bad kind) in the left knee...the very same knee that I injured.  Normally, I would have thought it was a cruel joke one of my co-workers was playing on me to mess with me, but none of them had worked over the weekend or even knew that I had hurt myself.  The Voodoo Doll remained in its box, nonchalantly in the corner.

Approximately a month later, I was involved in a hit-and-run accident.  My same knee was re injured, my car was totaled, and I would undergo three more knee surgeries to rectify the new problem.  This time, I pulled the Voodoo Doll out of its box and removed the black pin.  I still joked about it with my co-workers...I mean, come on, it was from a mall store and wasn't a real Voodoo Doll at all.  Or was it?  Did someone have it out for me and my poor left knee?

Finally, after two years of letting it slide, I researched properly discarding Voodoo Dolls.  When the time came, I followed the instructions exactly.  If anyone was to have bad luck going forward, it would be my boyfriend at the time, because against my warnings not to, he looked back at the charred remains of the doll as they were sent down the river.

My knee (and conscious) felt a million times better after ridding myself of the doll.  And the giver of the doll to the White Elephant exchange finally fessed up after my two plus years of wondering who contributed the doll to the gift party to begin with.  Turns out, it came to him from a friend who had also had weird happenings occur while the doll was in his possession.  However, to this day, I still have no idea who (or what) put the black pin that doll's knee.  I'm not even sure that I'd ever want to...

Voodoo-Free, and now only merely superstitious,
Freeway Fairington