The Number 13

January 2013 Blog Chain

The Number 13

Here we go in 2013, starting the Blog Chain from Absolute Write off with a bang! As you will see some of those participating in this month’s Blog Chain have written stories that revolve around the number 13, but I can’t do that. As I said before, and will undoubtedly say again, I don’t do well with short stories in a short amount of time. I ramble far too much for any coherence in that regard and nothing I could produce on the subject would even constitute a short story. So instead, I give you what I can do…

The number 13 doesn’t hold much significance for me really. It happens to be half of what my birth date is, and the birthday of one of my favorite cousins, but not much else comes to mind when I think of 13…other than the fact that it creeps me out. The number is just wrong somehow. So let us explore this mystery. After some time thinking about it and doing a little work on my phone browser, this is what I have for you to enjoy. (And yes, I did go to the almighty Google gods for some of my inspiration on this one, forgive me.)

I’m thinking first off, for no reason I can explain, what it would be like to have 13 kids. That’s a lot of mouths to feed!
Why aren’t there 13 months in a year and only 12?
Why don’t humans have 13 fingers and toes instead of 10?
Why had I never heard of Triskaidekaphobia (hope I spelled that right) until this month’s prompt came up? (I honestly didn’t know people had an actual fear of the number 13 and the fear was given a clinical name.) This caused me to do a little research on the subject because I find tidbits like this interesting. Apparently some believe the number is bad luck (not that I disagree on that point) and avoid anything to do with the number 13 whenever possible. Interesting. Even some buildings and larger hotels will go out of their way to not label the 13th floor as such. Even more interesting.
Ok here’s an obvious one I should have thought of right away, Friday the 13th. Perhaps, some will say, the unluckiest day of all.
In some countries 13 is a lucky number.
People have a 13 tattooed on themselves to represent good luck.
13 stripes on the American flag (another one I should have thought of right away).
Apollo 13 of course, who could forget that?
If memory serves, 13 is when Jewish boys have their Bar Mitzvah.
The 2001 version of Thirteen Ghosts (didn’t know there was one made in 1960, thank you Google).
In the span of 100 years we will have 13 full moons (for some reason this also creeps me out).
The number of Cylon models in Battlestar Galactica……oh wait, there’s only 12.

That’s just my little list of interesting bits I’ve found on the number 13. I did enjoy some of the information I found when looking around to see how people treat the number 13 in regards to good/bad luck. Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t like the number 13……even though I can’t truly explain my reason other than the one given above, it’s just wrong somehow. However, I don’t go out of my way on Friday the 13th to avoid a black cat that might possibly cross my path, or walking under ladders, or anything like that. I don’t think bad things happen on that day in particular just because of the date, bad things happen every day. That’s just my opinion. I’m sure bad things occur for some folks on those days and it feels like the worst omen in the world though.

There are a lot of interesting facts about the number 13, these are merely the ones I enjoyed the most, and the ones I was most curious about. On that note, happy 2013 everyone and may it be a good one for you.

Participants and posts:

orion_mk3 – http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com/ (link to post)

Ralph Pines – http://ralfast.wordpress.com/ (link to post)

SRHowen – http://srhowen1.blogspot.com/ (link to post)

areteus – http://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ (link to post)

angyl78 – http://jelyzabeth.wordpress.com/ (link to post)

Amanda R. – http://www.twoamericansinchina.com/ (link to post)

randi.lee – http://emotionalnovel.blogspot.com/ (link to post)

ConnieBDowell – http://bookechoes.com/ (link to post)

writingismypassion – http://charityfaye.blogspot.com/ (link to post)

Araevno – http://www.simonpclark.com/ (link to post)

Kewii – http://kellyneeson.blogspot.com/ (link to post)