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After spending yet another weekend with Johns Hopkins students, easily the most superstitious people on the planet, it got me a-thinkin' about all the different types of superstitions that must exist around the world of which I know nothing.

Some I was exposed to when I was a kid: I was told to hold my breath when driving past a graveyard to keep my soul, and that when the number on the clock all matched (ie: 5:55 or 12:12), I was supposed to pick my feet up off the floor for that whole minute or else evil spirits would sneak in my feet and go up my legs to my brain. Once I learned how to drive, I picked up kissing the tips of my fingers and then slapping those fingers against my car's ceiling as I passed underneath an amber light, which allegedly is good luck to keep it from turning red as you drive under it.

There are also the pretty standard ones, like walking under a ladder, black cat across your path, broken mirror, and opening an umbrella indoors that all supposedly mean bad luck.

So, what other superstitions are out there that you know of/believe in that I don't know about? Tell me, please!



PS: Sports superstitions are welcome--if anyone's interested, I'll tell you about the weird Hopkins lacrosse superstitions.

PPS: Just so y'know, I don't believe in superstitions; I just think they're fun. And I like slapping the ceiling of my car, and making people wonder why I do it. Became a clique thing that all my friends did in high school.

I hate superstitions! My father's side family is a superstitious, cowardly lot, blah! We even have some pot on a basin thinggy which has water running in it to give our house good feng-shui bullshit. Well, I can't complain since it's a fancy place to park my turtles while I clean their containers.

And the standard hold your breath and don't look at grave yards and funeral homes because evil spirits will mess with your mojo. And jumping across the fire after returning from a funeral. But I never go to funerals, they stink. I once skipped a "grieving session" in the funeral home where my great grandma was so I could watch the Spawn cartoons. It kicked ass. I was still a kid back then, my age was still single digit.

Hmmm...what else? Yeah, those feng shui thinggies which hang from the ceilings...whaddaya call them? Some of them make sounds...bah, whatever.

And there's the goldfish. Can't complain though since I don't feed them.

And there are the plate numbers. They all have multiple 8s on them, since the Chinese lucky number is 8. I mean, dozens of cars have shitloads of 8s in their numbers. And no, I'm not rich, we just refurbrish cars and use them a bit and sell them.

And what else...? Bah!

I'm Irish.

So you nail four leafed clovers on your doors to prevent leprechauns from coming in and chewing up your bag pipes or something?

Never step over a gun, gun's have souls and they'll be very upset.

7th month on the Lunar Calender is 'ghost month', Hell open's it's gates and "everyone" comes out. Spooky things go on and don't make big decisions like buying cars or houses.

0:00 AM, peel an apple while not making the peel-string break, in front of a mirror, you'll see your future spouse (some versions: do this in a graveyard)

Never let your bed face a mirror (not good for your soul)

Eyelids trembling: upper-left means good fortune, upper-right angriness, lower-left sadness, lower-right happiness

In late night, especially walking outside, if someone calls your name, don't look back (a 'lamp' of your soul will be extinguished)

Solution of the 'light' problem: clench your hand into a 'paw' and strike your shoulder (the direction you looked back) 3 times

If in a hiking group, don't count in a tunnel, you'll find a +1 while in the tunnel and then a -1 outside.

Pork leg noodles: remove bad luck

As Shroom man mentioned, 8 is lucky, 6 is also lucky, 4 is damn bad (sounds like 'death')

Dogs see ghosts.

Black cat jumping over corpse -> corpse becomes vampire

7th day after death the dead will return for a visit.

Some feng-shui stuff:
don't have your door facing a crossroad, too much bad energy
don't have rooms located on corner of crossroad, solution: blunt the corner or put some plants
'water' brings 'money' (aquariums, fountains, rivers, pictures of water...etc) as long as the flow direction is into your home
southeast corner of home: good for studying and test takers
right side of door/house: the higher the better
left side of door/house: the lower the better

If you hold your breath while going under a tunnel you can make a wish and have it come true.

I don't know if that's a real superstitition since I got it off of Tiny Toons.

i used to have an idiot fundie teacher that believed that meditating summoned evil spirits. that count?

Fundies are superstitions. They don't exist.

And the feng shui directions stuff is too confusing, didn't bother with it. It has the standard stuff. It's bad to have a house near or above a cemetary/septic tank/hospital and all that jazz.

Sitting under overhead beams gives you bad feng shui energy. And if there's an earthquake, they fall on you and kill you to death.

And dogs have a 6th sense for ectoplasmic activity, as GMY said.

And don't break the birthday noodles when you cook them, if they are intact it means that you'll live long and prosper. Can't complain about this one. Noodles rock!

From my Dad:
If you get a quarter that's been painted black or red by a vending machine owner as change somewhere, it's an omen of death.

From my Mom:
Birds flying into windows or trying to get into the house are an omen of death.
Green cars are bad luck. Only wreck my mom was ever involved in was between two green cars, she latched onto this one with a vengance. (I follow this one for no good reason, I think green is an ugly color on a car, though. )

Only one I can think of is when I was a kid their was the standard holding breath while driving by a grave yard thing, but it was mostly just for fun, I dont recall seriously believing in it.

I have Korean mom who's drilled many a weirdo supersition.

I'll get back to on the level of weirdness.

Eyelash on the cheeck = make a wish.

Spilled salt over the left shoulder.

Knock on wood.

"Bloody Mary" or "Candyman" in the mirror.

10 "pediddles" ("one-eyed jacks" or one-headlighted cars) in one night = you is teh getting liad!!111!

So far the only really weird ones off the top of my head is my mom loves the Chinese Zodiac.

So I'm to marry I believe a Dog or Horse...I dunno, but I do like the animal symbol I have(the Tiger...growl!). She puts a lot of stock into it, so I get some fun stuff from there.

And let's see she viewed great fortune for me because of a dream involving golden grain and large tiger.

All in all...there are more, but nothing of the top of my head.

Shroom Man 777 wrote:So you nail four leafed clovers on your doors to prevent leprechauns from coming in and chewing up your bag pipes or something?

Irish.....Bagpipes?

Chardok wrote:

Shroom Man 777 wrote:So you nail four leafed clovers on your doors to prevent leprechauns from coming in and chewing up your bag pipes or something?

Irish.....Bagpipes?

he's getting his brit nations confused me thinks...

hey, its all uk land somewhere.

Green hats brings bad luck.~Jason

I don't think that my parents had any big superstitions I ended up acquiring, so I really never brought any of the supersition nonsense. I met some other supersitious people, though. I believe one of them mentioned saying something over and over again at midnight, and an image appearing in a mirror. Of course, that was when I was in 4th grade.

You always eat ham on christmas and new years, or some pork product. No idea the reason for that one. You place a box with one coin with the birth year of every member of the house hold and one for the new year in your doorway new years eve to be left there until the next morning. I thinks its slavish and supposed to bring fortune and goodluck to the house.

Zac Naloen wrote:

Chardok wrote:

Shroom Man 777 wrote:So you nail four leafed clovers on your doors to prevent leprechauns from coming in and chewing up your bag pipes or something?

Irish.....Bagpipes?

he's getting his brit nations confused me thinks...

I saw enough of them on St. Patty's day to suggest that there was some serious cultural exchange shit going on.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Sports superstitions, you say? Well I have band superstititons which are related to sports.

Touching the Rambling Wreck (old mascot car) is good luck...unless you're a freshman, in which case it is bad luck. At the very least, frat boys will beat you up in Maryland.

After every game (except basketball tournament games) the band must play "The Horse." For the rest of the day, no one who played The Horse can play another note, or *bad things* will happen.

The band songs MUST be sung before major sporting events, and in a certain order. Again, *bad things*.

You must NEVER ask who the English Muffin is, but if she decides to grace us with her presense me must accept what she says as the unquestioned Word of God. (You don't want to understand, and even if you ask I'm not going to explain.)


I am such a shameless band nerd. Now...tell me about Hopkins lacrosse superstitions!

Chardok wrote:

Shroom Man 777 wrote:So you nail four leafed clovers on your doors to prevent leprechauns from coming in and chewing up your bag pipes or something?

Irish.....Bagpipes?

the irish have bagpipes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagpipes#The_Irish_Bagpipe

Superstitions, eh?

Well...

The top one in my mind is that, when I lived in San Fran, our House was haunted. That's right. We lived on the Presidio of San Francisco, in a House that had been built in 1908. I happened to get an entire floor to myself (This was the "Servants quarters"...you can tell it was oldschool army officer housing ). After about a month, I began to hear hissing noises, and my cats were, incidently, perpetually going batshit insane. The hissing noises weren't like pipes, more like a freaky Harry Potter from the Chamber of Secrets movie. Dad called Housing, and the kind elderly receptionist who worked there told us, very matter-of-factly, that the house was haunted. Some Colonel in the '50's murdered-suicided his family, and people had been complaining of weird shit sense. One of our neighbors told us the previous occupents' dog wouldn't go into the house. For two Goddamn years I had to listen to wierd ass noises, screaches that may-or-may not have came from our cats (who, after a year or so there, were "screaming" in the night.), and, to top it off, crazy homeless people who for some damn reason tried to steal our porch bench every night.

Not really a superstition, but I'm a bit more, uh, open minded now then I probably would have been otherwise. At about the same time, the Hitler Channel(tm) was showing a series on Haunted Cities, and when they got to San Francisco, they were talking about Army Houses at the Presidio and the defunct Ft. Mason. Apperently the one at Ft. Mason was a real nightmare, if we're to believe it.


As a Kid, I was really scared of the Bloody Mary-in-a-mirror-with-lights-out. Scared the beejeezus outta me.


I'm convinced my cats can see ghosts. One of them in particular (Big Willie) likes to sit down 10 ft away from you, and stare just to the right of you, then hiss, get all poofy, and run off. This has been going on since, oh, my Sophomore year in High School. Coincidently, that's when we moved to SF for 2 years.

When I attended Texas A&M, someone told me that there were a network of tunnels beneath the campus, specifically the Quad (the common area between the Cadet Dorms). At the time, I didn't believe him because I was just starting to work my way through snopes.com, and the website indicates that it's more or less a Urban Myth. Well, one day a Upperclassman in my company showed me, and I even went a couple hundred feet down one before I decided "Fuck it" and went back to the surface.

verilon wrote:Eyelash on the cheeck = make a wish.

Spilled salt over the left shoulder.

Knock on wood.

"Bloody Mary" or "Candyman" in the mirror.

10 "pediddles" ("one-eyed jacks" or one-headlighted cars) in one night = you is teh getting liad!!111!

I've gotten more than 10 pediddles PLENTY of times, and I've never gotten any...

My superstition I kind of adhere to is treating my dice as if they are people lest they turn on me at an inappropriate time.

Dalton wrote:I'm Irish.

I was going for a bit more detail than that, m'dear.

Ghost Rider wrote:So I'm to marry I believe a Dog or Horse...

I'm a Horse.

Mayabird wrote:<snip fun Hopkins-esque weirdness>
I am such a shameless band nerd. Now...tell me about Hopkins lacrosse superstitions!

LMAO! I never knew English Muffins spoke the word of God...

Ok, Hopkins superstitions...let's see (there are quite a few):

1. Most importantly, the Banana Guys will always be present at all men's lacrosse games. They've been there for over 50 years now, and apparently they'll never die, for they are forever expected to show up. There are at least three of them at every game, and at least one of them must wear yellow. If for some reason the Banana Guys were to not show up to a game, I think the team, pep band, and fans would all pack it in and go home.

2. The Banana Guys determined which goal of the game is the Banana Goal. At this point, when we score, everyone in the pep band (and the Banana Guys too, of course) holds up their banana in one hand while playing the fight song with the other hand. The Banana Goal signifies when it is guaranteed that Hopkins will win. Apparently they've never been wrong, ever.

3. If someone eats their banana BEFORE the Banana Goal has been identified, there will either be a) no more goals scored, or b) we won't win the game. The guilty person gets beaten up after the game.

4. If we play "The Final Countdown" (usually reserved for the end of very close games), we lose. I love that song, so I'm trying to introduce it in must-win situations so we can keep it in the flip folder.

5. If we win at home, we play "Washington Post March." No idea why, we just have to, otherwise we'll supposedly lose the next game. It's an incredibly high arrangement, which really sucks since we play it at the end of the game.

6. If we score 20 or more goals, we play one of our four German drinking songs to keep up the spirits of the team and to celebrate. If we score so many that we have to repeat the German drinking songs, we have to keep them in the same order otherwise we'll lose the game.

7. The pep band can't cheer the team on by specifically saying they need to score more goals, otherwise the loss of the game (which our cheering made imminent) becomes the band's fault.

8. During each game, one player on the team is deemed superior and is awarded a banana at the end of the game. The goalie from last year earned a lot of bananas and felt it was good luck for him to keep all of them in his locker all season long. The team has apparently adopted this and the players this year are supposedly keeping their bananas in their lockers all season long. Ew.

I know there are more, too...