Superstition

The human brain is wired to be superstitious. I know this not only because I have read it many times, but also because I have proof.

On Saturday night my husband and I had a "date night". Maybe our second in the five years since our girls were born.
Yes, not very impressive, I know. But the novelty made it very exciting.

So off we set for dinner and a movie. (Like I said, exciting).

Our local version of Lygon Street was jumping. While my husband's instinct is to circle around for a street park and follow pedestrians with keys in their hands or sit in the middle of a thoroughfare with indicators flashing until a space opens up, mine is to head straight for a parking building and then walk the extra five minutes to our destination.

But for once my husband followed my carpark suggestion straightaway - strange lucky break number One.

While I marvelled silently at this, we reached the carpark entrance and saw cars banked up waiting to enter. We tried the second entrance a few metres further down and could drive straight in. Not only that but two metres in a car drove out of a space right in front of us, in an otherwise full carpark - strange lucky break number Two.

We headed to the cinema. We were seeing a brand new movie on its first Saturday night release, in a busy location. We didn't have to line up (much) and got tickets - lucky break number THREE.
(But as an aside WHY are there allocated tickets at the cinema - why?? Seriously I have never understood why).

We headed back to the strip, and chose a newish restaurant. It was full, but as luck would have it... we were given a "reserved" table in the best spot outside while people filing in after us were turned away or propped at the cramped bar inside. Strange lucky break number FOUR.

At this point, I raised the obvious.

We were breaking the rules of nature; taunting the universe. It felt wrong. What was the price? What bad thing was sure to befall us after all these freakish lucky breaks?!

And then I remembered. The full moon. And not just any full moon, but the biggest full moon in years, as Saturday night marked the day the moon would be the closest to the earth in decades.
Was this a good omen, or bad?
Did it counteract our weird luck or cause it?
Either way it seemed to explain things.
SPOOKY....

So there is my tested, objective, scientific proof of the power of superstition. Despite the fact I am an atheist and a rationalist and I understand coincidence, selective reasoning and the like, even I, dear reader, am prey to the false god of superstition.

When I was trying to get pregnant and when I was pregnant I was also crazy superstitious - even when I knew it was crazy. The slightest, weirdest thing could risk or guarantee conception, or risk or keep safe our babies, if only I believed it was so.

You too?

Image: http://www.blingcheese.com/image/code/2/full+moon.htm