10 Superstitions That Don’t Involve Mirrors, Black Cats or Salt

1. If you go to make yourself a sandwich and see a hole in your bread, beware: a death in the family is just around the corner. At least, that’s one version. The other version is that the lady who baked the bread with the holes in it will find out she is pregnant (I’m assuming this comes from back in the day when only women baked).

2. Have friends on a cruise, or a relative in the Navy or the Marines? If you’re a girl, you’d better not comb your hair after nightfall. It will bring disaster upon the person at sea.

3. In other hair-related superstitions, you’re not supposed to throw old hair from your hairbrush away, ever. If a bird makes a nest out of it, you will have a headache until the nest no longer exists. I guess this means some people have a large collection of their own hair sitting around their houses.

4. If someone sneezes while you are putting your shoes on, you should just go back to bed. At least, that’s what St. Augustine of Hippo believed.

5. In Korea, you shouldn’t leave a fan on in a closed room – it means the residents of the house will suffocate.

6. In India, pregnant women should avoid going outside during an eclipse… that is, unless they want their child to have a facial birthmark.

7. This one dates back to WWI and is apparently somewhat well known – a movie was made about it. But I had never heard of it: if three soldiers light their cigarettes from the same match, either one of them will die or the last one to light the cig will be shot.

8. In Russia, if a chicken crows at you three times before noon, someone in your family is doomed. The chicken should be killed, but not eaten – eating it will only make things worse.

9. If you’re holding hands with someone and have to let go for whatever reason, you should say “Bread and butter” before letting go, then let go and join hand again as soon as possible. Otherwise you will have bad luck. I wonder if it’s just “Bread and butter”, or would any pairing work? “Peanut butter and jelly”? “Spaghetti and meatballs”? Hmm.

10. The ancient Chinese believed that if a man was out hunting, his children shouldn’t draw. The paths in the forest would become as complicated as the lines in the drawing and the poor hunter would never find his way home.

Bob H

Fish Pedicure

Apparently, fish pedicures (having fish nibble dead skin off your feet) are all the rage in beauty treatment:

Customer Patsy Fisher, 42, of Crofton, Maryland, admitted she was nervous as she prepared for her first fish pedicure. But her apprehension dissolved into laughter after she put her feet in the tank and the fish swarmed to her toes.

"It’s a little ticklish, actually," she said.

Ho said the hot water in which the fish thrive doesn’t support much plant or aquatic life, so they learned to feed on whatever food sources were available — including dead, flaking skin. They leave live skin alone because, without teeth, they can’t bite it off.

Bob H

 

Bob H

American Santas plunged into civil war

AP

The Amalgamated Order of Real-Bearded Santas hold their annual convention in Kansas

Rival Santa Claus leaders have been engaged in a decidedly unfestive power struggle that has polarised the lucrative US grotto market and forced hundreds of Father Christmases to choose between warring rival groups.

The hostilities have spilled on to the internet, in this case Elf Net, an online chat group where Santas go to exchange information on belt supplies and beard dyeing.

Organisers of the annual convention in Kansas of the Amalgamated Order of Real-Bearded Santas, fear it will be disrupted by splitters from rival groups such as the Fraternal Order and the Red Suit Society.

The trouble started last year with a row on the board of the Amalgamated Santas, a 700-member group which was set up in 1994 by 10 Santas doing a television commercial in Hollywood.

Tim Connaghan, the organisation's chief, was forced out after a rival board member, Nick Trolli, accused him of unethical behaviour by acting as a booking agent for 200 members hired for Christmas events and taking a $25,000 consultancy free from a film company.

Mr Trolli took over but he also proved controversial, expelling some 20 members for offences that included maligning fellow Santas on Elf Net.

In January, one of the banned members tried to gatecrash an Amalgamated Santas board meeting in California.

Before he was escorted out by security guards, he claimed the Elf Net's 6'4 tall administrator "used his elbow to bounce me off the wall" while Mr Trolli said the interloper charged into him "like a linebacker".

The fracas prompted another ousted board member, Tom Hartsfield, to shut down the group's website in protest.

"They threatened me with the FBI, and called me a thief and a terrorist," he told the Wall Street Journal. Leaders of the group deny the charge.

Other Santas have complained to the Kentucky attorney's office about financial irregularities within Amalgamated Santas, whose income largely comes from its $20 a year membership fee.

Kentucky prosecutors forwarded the claims to the Charitable Organisations Bureau in Pennsylvania, where the Santas group is based.

This week, Amalgamated Santas was handed a cease and desist order, based on charges that included solicited unregistered charitable contributions.

Mr Trolli said his group was setting up a fund to help needy Santas but has agreed to cooperate.

He told the Journal his family had been threatened by breakaway Santas. "My children have been instructed that, if anyone looks like Santa, run," he said.

In turn, Mr Connaghan's new group, the Red Suit Society, has accused the Amalgamated Santas of a "vindictive and persecutory" attitude towards members, and "engaging in Un-Santa like dialogue".

 

 

 

Bob H