Superstitious Fibbing Friday

It was Friday the 13th so last week, Pensitivity101’s selection was based on superstitions.

Make up your own reasons for these please:

  1. Why were people given middle names?

So that children could know just how pissed Mom was at them this time.
Margaret Elizabeth Robertson, you get in here this minute.

2. Why do we cover our mouths when we yawn?

To keep all the stupid from leaking out.

3. Why do we say ‘Bless You’ when somebody sneezes?

It’s a code phrase, meaning, Keep it down.  I’m trying to quietly enjoy a mint julep here.  One of my cats complains almost every time I sneeze.  It’s a ritual begun by vocally-impaired southern belles.  If a Georgia matriarch smiles, and says Bless you, or Bless your heart, you can translate it as F**k you very much.

4. Why do we wear a wedding ring on the third finger of the left hand?

Because, if we wore it on the middle finger, it would impair our ability to converse with taxi drivers and politicians.

5. What was the original use of wind chimes?

Obviously, to irritate those irritating neighbours.

6. What was the original purpose of bridesmaids?

It was a way to screw over poor Jacob, in the Bible, and get another 7 years of free labor from him, by substituting Rachel for Leah in the marriage-bed, following a drunken spirited wedding celebration.

7. What is the significance of the first butterfly of the year you see being white?

Probably that you live north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and you can thank your cotton-pickin’ lucky stars that you do.

  1. What does it mean if your right ear itches?

That you’re going to have to listen to another fool, and probably kiss your pension goodbye.

9. Why is Good Friday a good day to cut your hair?

For forty days, you’ve been cut off from good food and drink, and maybe even sex.  Cutting off a little hair is the thing you’ll feel and miss the least.

10. What should you give a friend who gives you a knife as a gift?

A wide berth!  😳

Fibbing Friday VI

Property of Pensitivity101 LLC.  All rights reserved – and some of the lefts, too.  Used without Penny’s knowledge, and definitely without her permission.  This is a lesson about the correct usages of lie and lay.  I’m going to lie to you, and I’m going to lay it on thick.

  1. What does it mean if you have an itchy right palm?

Your Grandma told you if you kept doing that, you’d go blind.  You said that you would stop when you just needed glasses.

  1. On the other hand, what does it mean if you have an itchy left?

Oh, it’s kinky, and you get a much stronger climax if you switch hands.  It feels like a stranger is doing it to you.

  1. Why is it considered good luck to find a horseshoe?

You’re lucky that, while you were passed out in that alley, under the influence of booze and/or drugs, the passing horse didn’t step on your head.  You’re also lucky that the only part of the horse that you had to pick up after, was a horseshoe.

In 1880s New York City, thousands of wagon-loads of meat and produce came into the city each day, and hundreds of them left, loaded with horse-shit manure, to fertilize the fields so that more could be grown.  Street sweepers were hired to gather it up, and haul it away.  I’ll bet the high school career counsellor didn’t mention that job.  😯

  1. Why is saying ‘Bless you’ when someone sneezes considered to be good luck?

In the dark and distant past – as recently as yesterday – superstitious savages actually believed that “your soul” could leave your body when you sneezed.  Saying ‘bless you,’ or ‘God bless you’ somehow helped to stuff it back in.  I don’t think that I qualify to be so blessed, and I don’t feel that most people who say it are properly trained or authorized to do so.

  1. Why do we say ‘Find a penny, pick it up?’

I don’t know about the rest of you, but for me – Canada has stopped minting pennies, so every one I find is a collector’s item.  Besides, if I keep it for six or eight weeks, it gains enough interest to become part of one of my ‘Smitty’s Loose Change’ blog-posts.

  1. Why do we ‘knock on wood?’

It’s a paean of praise for the Good Old Days, when things like window frames, doors, and even furniture was actually made of “wood.”  Nowadays, it may look like wood, but it’s probably metal or plastic – unless those sheets of glued-together sawdust that IKEA and Wal-Mart sell are considered wood.  😯

  1. Why is the number 666 considered unlucky?

666 isn’t really unlucky.  That’s where Satan lives, or, as he likes to identify himself, Bob, my neighbor.  His dog barks all night.  His cat digs up plants in my flower bed and pisses under my front window.  His kid climbs my tree and breaks branches off.  Number 668 is truly the unlucky one.  That’s where I live.  I’m the neighbor of The Beast!  😥

  1. Why do some people believe it’s unlucky to step on the cracks in the pavement?

BREAKING NEWS:  THIS JUST IN!

Scientific studies have revealed that we’ve been doing it wrong all along.  Apparently, stepping on sidewalk cracks, or even stomping on them, is good for your Mother’s back – and your Father’s, and the whole family.  If we all just mastered our aversion, we would all walk straighter and truer.

  1. Why do we cross our fingers for good luck?

We cross our fingers so that we can lie our face off – and get away with it – fibs, exaggerations, little white lies.  The crossed fingers represent the Christian cross.  The stupidstitious superstitious somehow believe that, by performing some arcane, magical, mystical, mythical, manual manipulation, they can get God to accept them as long-term-loyalty preferred-customers when they ignore the 15 Bible verses forbidding lying, and either get Him to overlook it, or immediately forgive them for their sin.

This is why we seldom saw Donald Trump’s hands, not that they were tiny, instead of the large, manly-man hands that he claimed to have.  He lied so much, so often, so broadly, so continuously, so outrageously, that he would have had crossed fingers on top of other crossed fingers.  His hands would have looked like an explosion in a Chinese noodle restaurant.  😯

  1. Why is it unlucky to open an umbrella indoors?

You know what catches my eye?
Short people with umbrellas!
  😳

Because it blocks the rays from the ultra-violet lamps that help to kill off the COVID19 virus, so that we can get back to the allegedly normal.

It’s been difficult, typing all this with my fingers crossed, but the cramps are finally easing.  I’ll be able to click ‘Publish’ again in a couple of days.  See you then.   😉  😀

Flash Fiction #154

Monster

PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz

NIGHT WATCH

A space rock was going to pass near Earth, and he’d wanted to get a photo of it. His best chance had been Lookout Butte at 2:30 A.M., no matter what the superstitious locals said.

Okay by day, but, at night…. There’s something that eats cattle – and coyotes – and the occasional tourist.  Next they’ll claim that Bigfoot has a condo up there.

He’d heard something as he got his picture, probably a groundhog, later, as he was going through his setup shots, he spotted those two red eyes watching him. Maybe these hicks really know something after all.

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a 100 word story.