schplog

It’s Friday the 13th and all through the house;
not a creature is stirring; not even a black cat chasing a mouse.

Because unless you’re a triskaidekaphobe, you don’t care. Triskaidekaphobia is a superstitious fear that crazy people have of the number 13. A specific fear of Friday the 13th - held by especially loony people - is called paraskavedekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia.

The word is made up of a bunch of Greek parts and everyone knows they were mad as hatters.

Tris = “three”, kai = “and”, deka = “ten” (thus thirteen), + phobia, “fear, flight”. There you have it.

Nutty as the ancient Greeks were, though, the word is actually a modern formation, first appearing in 1911 in I.H.Coriat’s Abnormal Psychology. Speaking of wackjobs.
And the story behind this suspiciously unlucky day (is it? is it?) is apparently the murder of the entire Knights Templar back in 1307. This event is said to be the origin of the supposed unluckiness of Friday the 13th… one bad Friday the 13th and it’s all downhill from there (crazy-headed victims of thirteenanomics and related Fridacities say, “See? See?”).

Of course even that goes back further: Apparently Jesus was crucified on a Friday, which was execution day among the Romans. The British continued the tradition by making Friday Hangman’s Day. The phrase “Thank Goodness It’s Friday” dates from these times. Whoo hoo! Only crazy people don’t like a good hanging!

Notable lunatics such as Napolean, Franklin Roosevelt, King Edward VII and Schplog hero Herbert Hoover were also triskaidekaphobes.

Even in Formula 1 racing, a sport more known for adrenaline junkie morons than for
psychos, there is no #13 car. There used to be until two drivers of that number car were killed in collisions. Now they just kill themselves in cars with other numbers.

Some cities skip 13 altogether when it comes to naming their streets.
In San Francisco, which everyone knows is filled to the brim with wackos, Funston Avenue is the one between 12th and 14th Avenues. While the street between 12th and 14tth Street is Division St.

In Sacramento, however, the dull-to-the-bones bureaucratic capital of California, which has a restraining order obliging crazy people to keep from approaching the city by at least 200 yards, you can actually stand at the corner of 13th and 13th, where 13th Street crosses 13th Avenue.

We leave you with the words of known mental patient Stephen King: “Most hotels very sensibly do not have 13th floors. . . . When I am reading, I will not stop on page 94, page 193, page 382, et al. — the digits of these numbers add up to 13.”