Hello. You may note that I’m speaking very softly today. I’m crouched in a protective posture and moving very little. I’m clutching a rabbit’s foot in one hand and a wishbone in the other. You people have no idea what misfortunes await me.

There are sharp sticks everywhere ready to put out my eye. Patches of black ice stretch smooth and invisible, waiting for me to skid out of control. Black cats are prepared to spring across my path and mirrors break at my approach.

It’s Friday the 13th.

OK. Maybe I’m not that superstitious. I had a pet lizard die on the dreaded date, but he was very old. The critter was so old, he was all green and wrinkled. Clearly it was his time.

There are those who are ruled by superstition on a day-to-day basis. Friday the 13th? Ha! What’s the significance, when every day is fraught with danger? Monday the 4th is every bit as perilous. You have to stay alert. You have to gather your charms to ward off the hexes.

Quiet, isn’t it?

Cops, for instance, really hate it when you use the word “quiet.” They get this spooked look in their eyes, and they tense up. It’s like telling a hockey goalie he has a shutout going late in the third period.

Many times, I’ve wandered up to an officer sitting peacefully in his cruiser or at the station. The night would be still and the scanner silent. It’s OK to notice these things. Just don’t put into words your observation that, “Gee, it sure is quiet around here.” That’s when all hell tends to break loose, one cop told me.

Certain prisoners will never utter the number of days left on their sentences for fear that a glitch that will keep them locked up longer. Some drug dealers wear lucky jewelry, convinced it will steer them from harm. And crack pipes are no different from cigarettes: three on a match is bad luck.

I knew a guy once who wore an old, faded baseball cap that he considered a good-luck charm. It was black and battered and made him look like a wet dog. I doubt its charms had much to do with attracting girlfriends. But he got edgy and paranoid without it, so I asked why he considered it lucky.

An ex-con, he explained that since he started wearing it, he had managed to stay out of jail. In addition, he’d survived two car crashes and one apartment fire. Lucky, indeed.

I thought of asking him if it wasn’t sort of unlucky that he’d been involved in so much calamity while wearing the hat. Then I figured it might bring misfortune raining down on my own head to pose such a question. I kept my trap shut.

I’ve met street people who avoid cracks in the sidewalk at all costs. No easy feat for someone who is homeless and spends most of his time on the streets. But it presents an interesting question: Do these people fear further misfortune? Or do they believe that earlier transgressions brought them to this state of desperation?

Sorta normal

Common superstitions, these. I work with a lady who is funny and bright and talented. As seemingly normal as anyone can be in a newsroom. But she’s got a thing about mirrors. In fact, she told me with unease that she’s just beginning a “seven-year stretch” of bad luck because she broke a mirror last year.

“I can remember the exact time I dropped the thing in the bathroom,” she told me. “I’m probably going to drop dead soon.”

Sure. Natural enough fear. After all, ancient Romans thought that a person’s image in a mirror was a reflection of the soul itself. And no good can come when the soul is shattered.

But there are some superstitions that defy explanation. These are personal habits we adhere to even though we have long forgotten why.

I know a woman who will never – I mean never! – pick up one dropped glove. If a glove slips from her grip, she has two choices. She can either wait for someone else to pick it up, or she can drop the second glove and retrieve them both at the same time.

She wasn’t drinking when she told me this, either.

I asked my friend where that particular superstition came from. Was she once attacked by a charging animal while stooped over to retrieve a glove? Did she split her pants at some point? There was no such story. She just knows, and knows without doubt, that plucking a single glove off the ground could spell catastrophe.

Me, I always make sure to crawl out of bed on the same side that I crawled in. And I will never count the number of stairs I am climbing. Why would I? That’s just madness.

I’m sure we’ll all be fine. Friday the 13th is merely an event that occurs in the never-ending cycle of dates and times. It’s only math. What could possibly go wrong? And besides: It sure is quiet out there.

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter.