There was a Friday the 13th earlier this month, and Halloween's coming up, so how about it? Will you be leaping out of the paths black cats or smashing mirrors without a care in the world? And whats the weirdest superstition you've ever heard of?

-- Anonymous, October 29, 2000

Answers

I'm not that superstitious. I always forget about them, plus, there's about 20 black cats that live in my neighborhood and if I were truly into it, I'd be a mess.

I don't know of any really bizarre ones, but I guess maybe the whole palm itching thing. Something about it your palm itches, you'll either get money or something really bad will happen, depending on where it itches.

-- Anonymous, October 30, 2000

You can rid yourself of warts by stealing a piece of bread from your friend's house and burying it in your back yard. That one's courtesy of Paul's mom. I know millions of others. I'll post them after I check the rest of the forum, which is working at this moment in time...

-- Anonymous, October 30, 2000

I'm not superstitious on dry land but I do have a few "rules" for when I'm sailing. It's bad luck to sail on a boat with a blue hull, to have bananas or to have pork (or even say the word pig) and it's bad luck to start a sailing trip on a Friday. I follow all of these rules, upto and including taking bananas and ham sandwiches out of people's hands and throwing them overboard.

I recently read that it used to be considered bad luck to have a woman on a sailboat! Well, I'm not giving up sailing, so I guess that's one seafaring rule I will have to risk breaking.

-- Anonymous, October 30, 2000

If you dream someone dies, that person will get married. If you dream of snakes, someone will die.

-- Anonymous, October 31, 2000

Shit, I dream of snakes pretty regularly. But they're always biting * me*, so why am I not dead yet?

I can't leap out of the path of black cats because I have two of them. Re: superstitions, I WILL NOT do the Bloody Mary thing. Forget. It. I know it's all made up and yes, I know who the real "Bloody Mary" is, but the horrifying picture from that so-called children's book "Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark" has warped me permanently. Oogh.

This is only a personal superstition, but I like to have my head under the covers so things won't "get" me. Other than that, I mostly don't believe in or follow them.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2000

What if you dream consistently of either a)celebrities b)television shows c)people you only know from the internet? It never used to be like this. I used to only dream about people I knew.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2000

I think if you do that, it means you're me.

Monday night I dreamed I was recapping Ally McBeal all night long. Tuesday afternoon I dreamed I was yelling at my kids because I was on the phone with an e-friend. I don't remember last night's dream, but I'm sure it was more of the same.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2000

Phew. You were in my dream the other night, Gwen. We were shopping together, and you got this evening gown and insisted on wearing it out of the store. So we went to Chik-fil-a together and I felt very underdressed.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2000

Aha! Another weenie! My wife does the same thing. Where's the rational to this? If I thought for one minute there was "something going to get me" the last fuckin' thing I could do is sleep. I can't believe there's actually another person on this planet who hides under the covers when they're afraid of a noise or something. Burglars must love this sort defense. Cheeez.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2000

Eva, that last post was for you. Sorry.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2000

I loved Halloween when I lived in the States- we'd have fancy dress parties and get really plastered and swap outfits. Here it comes and goes and no one blinks an eye. Luckily I live with a black cat and she cancels out any other incidents of black cats in my path. In Cyprus there are a million really odd superstitions: my husband won't let me pass him the salt without putting it on the table first- apparently it's bad luck to pass salt from hand to hand. If you've got all day and want more examples...

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2000

if i drop a fork i all ways throw salt over my shouldr i dont know why but my granny all ways used to do taht!

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2000

Well, that certainly makes more sense than washing the fork. Still talking dirty on the phone for money, sweet thang?

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2000