Friday the thirteenth

I know it's not Friday but it is the thirteenth and I'm having one of those days. I should have stayed in bed like my grandmother used to do. Somehow she was never worried about bad luck befalling my granddad, who had to trek up and down the stairs attending to her every need while she stayed upstairs and mostly in bed on those days. Maybe this was her way of extracting a bit of TLC just once every 213 days. She was a superstitious lady. As children we were warned by my mother never to open an umbrella inside the house .. not, at least, when grandma was around. Opening an umbrella in the house was a common occurrence in Scotland. How else did we get the damn thing dry so that it could be stored away with stinking and growing mould?

But I digress. My day started with a coffee machine malfunction! I had to opt for the disgusting instant coffee alternative. That wasn't the end of it! Oh no! Back at my desk there was a computer malfunction. I just hate it when machines don't work. IT support came to the rescue and order was restored. That's when I made my biggest error of judgment. I should have read the signs .. but no. Skipping morning coffee (the coffee machine was still out of beans) I set out for the post office. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and all in all it was turning out to be a very nice day ... until, on my way back to the office, I tripped over some kind of bump on the pavement and fell flat on my face. Well not really on my face .. but I did graze a knee and damage a few finger nails. Is it normal that the first thought after hitting the ground is not how much damage you've inflicted on yourself but how many people are watching?

Is anyone totally immune to superstition? My mother always said that bad things come in threes. I'm ready to believe that and I'm kind of hoping that my quota of three bad things is complete for the day. Fingers crossed anyway.