Laughing Matters: The One with No Black Cats

By Ryan G. Van Cleave |  Illustrations by Darcy Kelly-Laviolette

I‘m superstitious. Not at a crazy level, mind you. It’s not like I juggle three chipmunks while facing north every February 4th to ensure my house doesn’t get destroyed by termites that year. (That IS crazy. Everyone knows you have to face SOUTH to make those little wood-munchers go after the neighbor’s place versus yours!)

But I avoid ladders. (Need that ceiling bulb changed? Want a gutter cleaned? That wasp nest way up yonder bugging you? “That’s why God invented handymen,” I assure my wife, who is never amused by this situation.)

And I steer clear of any cat, black or otherwise. (Now this is partially to do with my devastating cat allergies. Not that my students should know this, but one could practically commit attempted murder against me by showing me a photo of a tabby. I’d sneeze all the way to Botswana!)

And if anyone mentions “Macbeth” in a theater, well, it sure the heck won’t be me! (Though I’m anything but a theater guru, my theater guru friends tell me. After all, I’ve been known to confuse plays with musicals. Plus I firmly believe that Kanye West will be the next great Tony winner. And one time in a Hoboken Starbucks, I might’ve asked Lin-Manuel how hard it was to memorize all those lines.)

But it’s like I said—I have a healthy and entirely appropriate level of appreciation for superstitions. As Stevie Wonder wisely states in that famous song of the same name (and I might be paraphrasing here):

Be very superstitious, or you’ll tumble off a wall.

Be super superstitious, or you’ll be haunted by the terrifying ghost of Andy Warhol! 

You know the tune. It’s catchy as all heck, but people just don’t pay attention to lyrics often enough, do they? Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”? It’s a vampire love song. Clearly. Lorde’s “Royals” is most assuredly about baseball great George Brett. And don’t get me started about what Justin Timberlake’s “Ayo Technology” is REALLY about. 

Anyways—why am I waxing philosophic regarding superstitions? Because 2019 has 2—count ‘em, TWO!!!—Friday the 13th days. September and December. Both 13s. Both Fridays.

In short, 2019 has a pair of big bullseyes on it. Two snorts of impending doom. And I’m not afraid to admit that I’m more than a little nervous about this run-for-the-hills fact. If I could, I’d leapfrog 2019 and go right into 2020, which surely has to be better cued up for success.

Now you might be asking: “Why aren’t I writing about this 2019 Friday the 13th situation in, say, September of 2019? Or perhaps last month as 2019 started?” The reason is obvious. It’s because I just realized this horrendous fact right now, having been using a 2017 calendar for the first few weeks of January without realizing why I kept missing meetings.

Look—we’ve got to talk to the calendar people and get this under control. We’re playing with superstitious fire here. There are potentially cosmic repercussions to be had.

Don’t believe in the awesome, nefarious power of Friday the 13th? Refuse to buy into the friggastriskaidekaphobia like me? Let’s review the data.

1—October 13, 2006. A freak snowfall, called the “Friday the 13th Blizzard,” dropped 22 inches on Buffalo, NY in 1 day. 

2—On June 13, 1986. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson were born.

3—Aug 13, 1521. Conquistador Hernán Cortés captured Cuauhtémoc (the ruler of Tenochtitlán), claiming his city for Spain and marking the end of the Aztec Empire.

4—1979. Paul Hawson received this letter: “Thank you for submitting your demo tape. We have listened with careful consideration, but feel it is not suitable for us at present. We wish you luck with your future careers.” Who’s Paul Hawson? Bono. And the band being rejected by RSO is U2. Even weirder, the demo tape was both SENT IN and REJECTED on a Friday 13th. (This last fact might be less true than the other facts of this anecdote). 

5—Loads and loads of other scary things. Trust me.

Given this amazing preponderance of anti- Friday the 13th evidence, I think my plans for 2019 have changed. I might soon be booking a flight to Ireland to give that Blarney Stone a big smackeroo. It’s the only chance we’ve got, honestly. Better sooner than later. 

So if next month’s humor column has a hint of an Irish brogue throughout and ends with “Well, now look at the state o’you!” or perhaps “May misfortune follow you for the rest of your life . . . and never catch up!” You’ll know why!

Got your own things to be superstitious about? Want to explain why we all should avoid eating buffalo wings from 3:44pm to 3:51pm every second Thursday of the month? Need to explain why you absolutely can’t remove that swarm of Africanized honey bees from your attic? Feel like finally explaining why Russians WANT birds to poop on their cars?

Send all those gems to ryan@scenesarasota.com right this moment!