Friday the 13th

The origins of "Friday the 13th" and its superstitions.

Some people expect bad luck on Friday the 13th, so if you get fired from your job today, or smash up your car, you can blame it on Friday the 13th. Superstition provides us with an excuse for explaining away our mistakes. It's an easy way to rationalize the screw-ups for which we are responsible.

So where does it come from -- the fear of 13? Its origins can be traced to Norse mythology and a dinner party at Valhalla, home of the god Odin, where Odin and 11 of his closest god-friends were gathered one night to party. Everyone was having fun, but then Loki, the dastardly god of evil and turmoil, showed up uninvited, making it a crowd of 13. The beloved god Balder tried to boot Loki out of the house, the legend goes, and in the scuffle that followed he suffered a deathblow from a spear of mistletoe.

From that mythological start, the number 13 has been bad luck through history. There were 13 people at Christ's Last Supper, including the double-crossing Judas Iscariot. Apollo 13 lunar mission left the launching pad at 13:13 hours and was aborted on April 13. Fridays haven't been any better. Friday was execution day in ancient Rome -- Jesus was crucified on a Friday. Put it all together, and Friday the 13th spells trouble for some phopics.

Skyscrapers and hotels have no 13th floor; airplanes have no 13th aisle. But the joke is on triskaidekaphobics, fear of the number 13, since the 13th aisle is sitting right there behind the 12th, obviously -- it's just labeled as 14 to trick you into relaxing.

But triskaidekaphobia isn't an exclusively American affliction. Italians omit the number 13 from their national lottery. There is an organization in France whose exclusive purpose is to provide last-minute guests for dinner parties, so that no party host ever has to suffer the curse of entertaining 13 guests.

So how bad can the phobia get? Donald Dossey, director of the Phobia Center in Asheville, N.C., says that the various effects of triskaidekaphobia can range from a mild, nagging sense of doom to full-blown obsessive behavior. Some people refuse to get out of bed on Friday the 13th, Dossey says.