| Superstition | |
February 23, 2016
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| She was a superstitious person. Every morning, she got up at 7:07 sharp because she set her alarm clock for that time. When she washed her face, she would use her left hand first because a website that she checked every day stated that doing it this way would bring people good luck. Actually, she was a frequent user of this website. The website provide various kinds of methods to create good luck (and bad luck). On this day, she had a meeting with a publishing company about her new serialized comic. She was a comic book writer. She left home earlier than usual to get to the meeting because she needed to take a detour to get to the office. The website offered lucky and unlucky directions of the day. The office was to the east of her apartment. The east was the unlucky direction of the day. So she aimed her car to the north and drove 20 minutes or so, and then changed the direction to the south, and then a little bit south-east, and finally got to the office. When a worker at the office saw her in her yellow skirt, yellow jacket, yellow shoes,
The only thing that she was unsatisfied about were the things that happened with her recent boyfriend. She had set the days of their dates according to lucky numbers. She asked him to wear the clothes in certain colors that she recommended. Even so, she sometimes stopped their date in the middle, saying that she saw a black cat or something like that. Her boyfriend got tired of her habit, and broke-up with her. After getting over him, she began to think that it was a good sign because she could meet a better guy. This week, her most fearful day would come, Friday the 13th. (Friday the 13th comes once or twice or sometimes three times a year.) On the last Friday the 13th, she went out and crashed her car. This time she decided not to go out. In the morning on Friday the 13th, when she woke up and looked at the alarm clock, she screamed. It was 9:13. She couldn't believe it. She set her clock at 7:07 last night. Last night, she was too nervous to sleep thinking about this day and overslept. 9 was also a bad number in her country. But, she had a second thought, remembering her worst experience of getting up. She used to stay up late and get up late. One day, when she woke up, the clock showed 13:13. She almost died. After that incident, she changed her life style into an early type. When she got a phone call, she felt some ominous feeling. It was her mother. In a gasping voice, she told her daughter that she had a bad stomach-ache. It was the first time that this type of thing happened because her mother was always healthy. She said to her mother apologetically sorry but she couldn't come because she had an important meeting, she lied. The mother said that her husband (her father) was on business trip, and she called an ambulance but all the ambulances were all out. The daughter thought that maybe today's very bad luck increased the number of hospital patients. She told her mother that she would call a taxi for her. The mother reluctantly accepted. When she was waiting for the taxi company to answer the phone, she suddenly felt weak and hung up. She changed her clothes into all pink (lucky color of the day), and started her car. She didn't detour this time although she was holding onto as many lucky charms that she bought from the website. When she was waiting at a traffic light, she noticed that the number plate in front of her car was 0013. She was terrified. She hated that some people would willingly chose unlucky things saying that they were rare so they would bring good fortune. She couldn't believe their recklessness . She got to her parents' house and her mother was waiting at the entrance. Her mother was too sick to comment about her daughter's strange fashion. She hastily sat her mother in her car's back seat, and started to go. From the rear view she could see her mother's sweating face. Luckily, the road was not so crowded. She thought a lot of people were avoiding going out. (Maybe this was not correct.) She got to the hospital's parking lot and carried her mother inside. When she was about to get to the entrance of the hospital, she saw an old woman marching with black cats, there were 13 cats. She passed out. When she came to, she was lying on the bed. Next to her bed, her mother was sleeping. Soon a nurse came in and told her, "We were very surprised at you two ladies laying in front of the hospital. Some patients found you and our staff brought you in. Your mother suffered from a twisting of the bowel, but she is OK now." She was relieved. Soon a doctor came and asked her for what reason she had passed out. She was embarrassed, but said that she passed out because of seeing 13 black cats. The doctor teased her that she might be a mouse in her previous life. He was handsome. Now she was thinking that this was very lucky to meet him, and it might be a good time to loosen her superstitious habit. |
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*detour :a different, longer route to a place that is used to avoid something or to visit something (C)
*get over sth :to begin to feel better after being unhappy or ill (C)
*ominous :making you think that something bad is going to happen (C)
*come to :become conscious again after an accident or medical operation (C)
*bowel :the long tube that carries solid waste from your stomach out of your body (C)