Ever wonder why Friday the 13^th is bad luck?  We all did it.  I remember that as a kid, and actually do double takes on this date, wondering how Karma might dope slap me. 

I don’t lie in bed with the covers over my head wetting myself, mind you, but I do wonder with curiosity what evil might lurk that day that I can blame on outside influences.  Let’s face it, it’s always more fun to lay it off on outside forces than look at yourself for the answer, right?

Rationalizing:  Keeping people sane and unaware of their faults since Eve blamed the snake.  Or, more appropriately, since a bunch of old guys wrote the story and blamed it on a woman.

An internet article today had some interesting tid bits:

The British Medical Journal reported that in 1993 on such a day that hospital admissions due to traffic accidents were 52% more than on regular Fridays.

How can this be?  Does this mean people go into defiance mode like Lt. Dan lashed to the mast in Forrest Gump daring the fates to test them by thinking “Come on! Is that all you’ve got?”  Does it mean some folks get a case of the yips behind the wheel and are more cautious than normal, causing THEM to be rear ended more due to their caution?

Come on people.  If you are that skittery take the subway and hope the operators have had cell phone failure so they won’t be texting “OMG! LOL!” to their girlfriends shortly before running a red light in a tunnel.

Naturally there are some roots in Christianity.  Given Jesus was crucified on a Friday, some Christians believe the sixth day of the week to be bad luck.  How does this square with “Thank God It’s Friday?”  Is TGIF really just an expression that says we are spoiling for a fight with Karma?  Heading to the bar early to get a little alcohol aboard and channel our inner ugly drunk might explain that one.

Likewise, 13 were at the Last Supper.  So, Friday the 13^th seemingly comes from the story.  Had there been 32 at the last supper, would we have more days in the months for a Friday the 32^nd?  Can we blame this on the advance men who couldn’t raise a big enough crowd for said supper?  Maybe the Father was ticked at the small send off party for his only son he felt was woefully unappreciated by we mere mortals?

The Last Supper.  Nothing But A Remake? 
(Picture Courtesy www.johnmariani.com)

Naturally, there’s a link to an older human story which makes one wonder if the Last Supper is just a folklore remake akin to the way Hollywood revises old classics like Mutiny On The Bounty.  Brando’s was better than the first with Charles Laughton and Clarke Gable, but Mel Gibson’s was kind of a clunker.  Stands to reason.  Only actor in there with one-name-recognition is, well, Brando.  Gibson had it for a while, but we all know his little tailspin of late.  Maybe he spent too much time in bars on Friday yelling “TGIF!” when he should have been praying.  Might have made better movies about religion, too.

In Norse mythology the most reviled Norse God, Loki, showed up uninvited at a dinner party for 12.  As the 13^th guest he was said to have caused Balder’s death.  Balder was the god of light, joy, and reconciliation.  

Balder.  Gable, (Young) Brando or Gibson Could Pull It Off 
(Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Sounds to me like Judas and Jesus were simply reprising the roles of Loki and Balder, in the story Dinner Party Gone Horribly, Horribly Wrong, no?  Constantine obviously liked the story as he kept it in while vetting the Gospels down to four to conform to the four directional quadrants when he bought the franchise and headquarted it on his home turf. 

Downsizing is not a new concept, people.

Another story has been given a new boost through Dan Brown’s best selling novel The Da Vinci Code that had some religious scholars less then pleased.  (A remake gone bad, perhaps?)  This story revolves around the Knights Templar, taking place on October 13, 1307. 

According to an article by Katherine Kurtz in about.com, officers of King Philip IV of France carried out a dawn raid rounding up several thousand Templars, or knights, sergeants, priests, and serving brethren, and throwing the book at them with charges of heresy, blasphemy, various obscenities and homosexual practices.  (Were blasphemous, obscenity laced utterances blurted out in the midst of homosexual ecstasy, per chance?) The usual interrogation techniques took place, with many dying and some being burned at the stake.

And these were the guys first formed as warrior monks (odd turn of a word, wouldn’t you say) to be out on point in the Christian Crusades against Islam.

So this last story doesn’t really tie to the dinner parties gone wrong, but maybe it was a way to cover tracks on having plagiarized the Last Supper story from Norse Mythology.  Maybe the Templars knew this and were more than a little ticked off at having battled hell out of Islamic fighters.  Perhaps they had a literary agent who had done a little too much digging trying to find them the right book deal and uncovered the linkage.

If they’d been smart, perhaps they’d have selected their top 12 warriors to throw a dinner party for King Philip and dusted him off.

Who knows?  Then perhaps Christianity and Islam would all get along, and Friday the 13^th would be heralded as the day that brought about World Peace through religious understanding.

Eve would be off the hook, and we could blame the French.

Either way, it’s no more outlandish than other folklore.  Besides, it is something to ponder while staying inside the bunker.  I mean, it’s Friday the 13^th after all.  I just hope I don’t get a computer virus or slip a disk throwing spilled salt over my shoulder today.