Don’t believe Friday the 13th hype

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By Michael Cooper, Staff Writer 11:49 PM Thursday, January 12, 2012

It’s possible you woke up this morning and didn’t realize it was Friday the 13th.

Well, it is. And if you’re wondering, I don’t buy the hilarious superstition.

It’s just another day, and it happens to be Friday and it happens to be the 13th of the month.

We’re getting three Friday the 13ths this year, with two more coming in April and July — so you better plan for something “monumentally bad” to happen.

I don’t buy it, but apparently I’m the only one not hiding out in my crawl space (I’m upstairs laughing hysterically).

According to Wikipedia, 17 to 21 million people are affected by fear of this day. Also, “an estimated $800 to $900 million is lost in business” on Friday the 13th because people avoid their normal routine, won’t travel in airplanes or merely won’t get out of bed because of friggatriskaidekaphobia (the technical term for the fear of Friday the 13th ... and yes, I had to cut and paste that word).

To me, Friday the 13th is just another day Hollywood likes to release scary movies. In 2009, we got another “Friday the 13th” movie, but this year is oddly different: “Joyful Noise” and “Contraband” open today. They might actually be scary enough to keep people away from Chakeres Cinemas (and I know what Dolly Parton and Mark Wahlberg will be using as excuses for poor box office numbers).

Which brings me to my point: Something strange is going to happen tonight on area prep hardcourts, and somebody is going to blame it on Friday the 13th.

I won’t buy it, and you shouldn’t, either.

Last week was Friday the 6th and a few “strange” things happened:

• Northeastern beat Greeneview 56-55 in overtime. According to the pundits (like me), this wasn’t supposed to happen. But a hot team (Northeastern) caught a good team (Greeneview) on an off-night on the hot team’s home floor. The Jets had a plan, and it worked.

• Three other games were decided by one-point — Mechanicsburg 46-45 victory over Catholic Central, Tippecanoe’s 53-52 win over Kenton Ridge and Northwestern’s 56-55 triumph over Greenon. These teams are evenly-matched, so it’s no surprise they played close games. That’s four games in Clark County being decided by one point in one night.

• Urbana snapped a 10-game losing streak to Graham with a 41-31 victory. Not surprising considering how close the games have been over the last few years between the Hillclimbers and Falcons, especially given the rivalry.

Something surprising happens almost every night on the basketball courts in Clark County, and all over the nation.

Just because it happens tonight doesn’t mean the day is cursed. If you win, you played well, and if you lost, you didn’t do things well enough to win.

It’s as simple as that.

And now that I’ve talked smack about Friday the 13th, something bad is probably going to happen to me. Maybe.

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