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A typical year will produce two Friday’s the 13th, and each of these provokes a flurry of silly stories in the media. This past Friday September 13, 2013 was no exception. Perhaps the most widely reported story was this Guardian piece on “flight 666 to HEL.” There is a daily Finnair flight, AY666, from Copenhagen to Helsinki, and, although it must run on Friday the 13th quite often, the Guardian picked up on this confluence of fearful symbolism last week. The paper also reported that, as a precaution against losing the revenue of superstitious travelers, Scandinavian Airlines has eliminated the 13th row from its planes.
What was refreshing about this particular story was the tone. Rather than highlighting the fears of travelers, the article tends to make fun of the coincidence. One of the pilots is quoted saying that the date has been “a joke” among his colleagues. Given that—in my opinion—we would all be better off had no one had ever taught us these fear-inducing superstitions, it was refreshing to see a story that seemed to encourage flaunting the fear.
A number of people have asked me what the effects of an entire year associated with the number 13 might be, and I have expressed the hope that encountering the number every day might habituate people to its presence and cure us all of our triskaidekaphobias. So far that hope is
unfulfilled. What I could not have predicted was that an unlucky 2013 would be used as an excuse for the poor performance of a large retail firm. Earlier this year, the successful mall-based clothier Men’s Wearhouse went through a highly publicized split with its founder, George Zimmer. Now comes a report that CEO Doug Ewert has blamed lower sales this year on superstitious brides:
Historically, we’ve seen numeric anomalies in the calendar effect when brides choose their wedding date, and we believe that the number 13 in 2013 is causing a small, but meaningful number of brides to avoid getting married this year. (Men’s Wearhouse CEO, Doug Ewert).
There are many superstitions associated with important life events, such as weddings and births, and it is also true that most studies find women to have stronger belief in the traditional superstitions, such as the number 13. (Men are more likely to believe in Big Foot and UFOs.) But if Ewert is correct, his company should experience a healthy rebound in sales next year. We shall see.
To learn more about the history of our fear of 13 and the story of its merger with Friday, I recommend Nathaniel Lachenmeyer’s excellent book 13: The Story of the World’s Most Popular Superstition. Incidentally, the Chinese have many unlucky numbers, most notably 4, which is said to derive its fearful power from sounding like the word for “death.” As a result, the labeling of Chinese buildings often skips over both the 4th and 14th floors.
