Superstitions Are Sheer Manipulation

Halloween is my least favorite time of the year. I don’t like masks, I’m not crazy about strangers’ children, and giving away candy just defies common sense.

I don’t like sticking my hand in large vegetables to take out its slimy seeds, and I resent the television commercials for horror movies that catch me by surprise. Just as a handful of popcorn reaches my lips, I’m staring at some demented person crab-crawling across the floor.

The idea of going door-to-door has never appealed to me; it’s why I never chose to sell encyclopedias or vacuums. And I don’t like walking around in the dark.

[quote button_text=”Tweet the quote”]Halloween involves a lot of effort just to get old candy.[/quote]

But many people are obsessed with it, and tie all sorts of dark beliefs to the month of October.

As Stevie Wonder sang, there are superstitions. And I am convinced that most of them were created by either a spouse or child who had broken or spilled something.

Most superstitions came not from the mystical universe, but from manipulative humans.

  • If you break a mirror, seven years of bad luck will follow. Kids are playing ball in the house. Kids hit the mirror with the ball. Mom comes home and yells, “Who broke the mirror?” Kids response, “I don’t know, but I hear seven years of bad luck will follow said person, so no spanking is necessary.”
  • If you drop a fork, a man will come to visit you. Single mom in the late 1800’s, sitting with children who are fighting each other, and one drops a fork. Mother, exhausted from working all day, says, Why must you children always fight? I’m going to remain seated until one of you picks up that fork!” Child replies, “You’d better go get gussied up, ma, cause my pal at school says when you drop a fork it means a man’s gonna come visit you.”
  • If a bird flies into your house, a death will occur. Duh. The death of the bird.
  • Never say “thank you” when someone gives you a plant or it will die. I’ve never heard of this one, but I will be using it moving forward since I seem to kill plants on a regular basis.
  • If you carry a hoe, spade, or shovel in the house, you must carry it out the same door you came in by, or a death will follow. Teenage son walks out of the mudroom with the shovel, and proceeds to shovel an area of the yard for no reason creating a hole that dad will fall in when mowing. Kid takes the shovel, still covered in dirt, and goes in the front door and walks across the carpet that mom just vacuumed. Said mother takes the shovel from his hand and beats him to death with it.
  • Dirt is never swept out the front door after the sun went down or bad luck will come to your home. Probably created by Laura Ingall’s mom when they were on that little house on the prarie.
  • You never walk under a ladder or bad luck will come to you. Created by all of the fathers nursing broken legs after a kid ran under their ladder to get a ball.

Superstitions, witches, crab-crawling freaks and somebody else’s candy. . . another Halloween is on the way. Maybe this year I will get into the spirit of things.

When the doorbell rings, and I see the little darlings through the peephole,  I’m going to have my husband open the door . . . and I will crab-crawl towards the children.

That should take care of things.