TGIF13

Apparently, 19 million Americans won't leave the house today for fear of the date. That's a lot of superstitious people. It is not surprising then that according to a 2007 Gallup poll, about 43% of Americans believe that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." Almost HALF! (Now there's information that makes me afraid to leave the house! At least in Spain, over 80% accept evolution as truth.)
Incidentally, In Spain, Tuesday the 13th is bad luck. Given the observance of the puente, the practice of linking a weekend to a Thursday or Tuesday holiday by taking the respective Friday or Monday off, I can't help but feel that the day was selected just to give the superstitiously petrified an extra-long break.
Despite being plagued by a colorful array of anxieties throughout my life, (as a child I literally lost sleep over the worry that a volcano would grow under my house and erupt. In Ottawa.) I have never been superstitious. Maybe it has to do with being told at the age of six or so, "God doesn't exist. It's just something people made up."* If my family was willing to so casually dismiss the possible existence of a divine creator, you can imagine the short shrift given to black cats, ladders and stepping on cracks.
Thank Made-up-entity! I have enough irrational fears as it is:

(a very abridged list)

• Bees. Seriously, they are the stuff of nightmares.
• Tardiness. If somebody is more than 15 minutes late, something horrible has happened to them, which I will be blamed for as they were on their way to meet me.
• That cough is cancer.
• That cold is AIDS.
• That decision was the one that irrevocably set me on a path that will lead to a short unfulfilling life followed by a long, painful and humiliating death. 

Happy paraskevidekatriaphobia, motherfuckers!

*Mixing this atheism with a healthy dose of Hebrew school and Jewish celebrations probably contributed to the aforementioned anxieties. Children do not process contradiction well.