Part of the fun in being an author is being able to exercise my imagination in a direction I would normally reject in my day-to-day life. For instance, I’ve never seriously played the daily numbers lotto because I’ve studied statistics. For me, the winning lotto odds don’t outweigh the risk or justify the expense. Friends who do religiously play the daily lottery numbers say, “You can’t win if you don’t play.” True enough, and I might agree with their logic and change my mind if I ever saw any of them actually win.
That said, while I scoff, my character Aunt Babette, a
mediumistic NOLA voodoo queen, truly believes in numerology which is, according
to Wikipedia, “a pseudoscientific belief in a divine or mystical relationship
between a number and one or more coinciding events,” including “the study of
the numerical value of the letters in words, names, and ideas.” On Friday the 13th, Aunt Babette won’t comb her hair or leave the house until the
calendar flips to the next date after midnight. The only reason she tolerates her niece
Leslie’s husband Ken is because Ken’s name has three letters in it, a holy
trinity number that makes Ken lucky. She believes he carries that luck into
their house.
This belief (or superstition) is a two-edged sword. I’ve researched the so-called “Baskerville Effect,” named for the classically brilliant Sherlock Holmes’ story where doomed Sir Charles Baskerville gets chased to his death by a giant black hound. The effect is an allegedly self-fulfilling prophecy with the victims suffering fatal heart failure brought on by the psychological stress over what they see as an unlucky day like Friday the 13th or after being pursued across a moonlit moor by a hellish-looking hound.
I’m also fascinated by the opposite belief like the Chinese obsession with the number “8,” believed to be the luckiest number in China because eight is pronounced “ba” which sounds like “fa” which means “well-off” or “becoming rich in a short time.” This is serious stuff. In Hong Kong, vehicle license plates are offered at public auctions. In 2016 someone coughed up $2.3 million dollars for a plate with the number “28,” which in Cantonese sounds like the phrase for “easy money.”
Hey, wait a second. I may be on to something. Maybe I should
play the lottery number, “ba”?
What does this mean for today’s blog? Well, today’s date is
2/22/2022, the last of the three “222” days we’ll see in this century (e.g., 2/02/2022,
2/20/2022, and 2/22/2022). Aunt Babette would be all over today’s date because
she believes that the 222 numeric sequence is an “Angel Number,” a universal
sign of positivity, good luck, and joy used by guardian angels to communicate a
reminder that we’re all on the right path and we’re doing the right things in
our lives.
We won’t see the 222 numeric sequence again until 2222.
Statistically speaking, I’m willing to bet I won’t be around to see that date
roll up on a calendar again. Any takers?
I consider 02-22-2022 a lucky day.
ReplyDeleteA palindrome of sorts? I'm a word nerd and love that 2-2-22 is on a Tuesday!
ReplyDeleteWonderful blog. I remember learning about the significance of 8s in a James Clavell book – Nobel House, maybe. The Chinese Tai-Pan had the license plate 888 on his car. Very lucky. My dad was convinced he would hit the lotto. He never did, but each week – it was a weekly draw then – he would copy the numbers and study the trends and use the result for his next ticket purchase. One thing is true, you can’t win if you don’t play. My preference is scratch off. Instant triumph or tragedy!
ReplyDeleteLots of fun, Martha! I like Roman numerals and was especially fond of the year 2000. I could sign my needlework MM MM.
ReplyDeleteI never considered using Roman numerals. That opens up a whole new line of thought!
ReplyDeleteI loved Reading Tai-Pan way back in the day. I think it was high school. 😳
ReplyDeleteMy husband always maintained that if the gods of luck wanted you to win, you would find the winning lottery ticket on the ground, so what's the point of buying them?
ReplyDeleteI consider my lucky number to be 418. It was the timeclock & machine operator number assigned to me when I finally managed to get a job at a time I was broke and jobs were were scarce. I have to admit that I never won anything using it (yes, I did buy an occasional lottery ticket) but it did come through that time I really needed some luck (there were over 500 applicants for 25 jobs.)
My first "real" job was as a financial typesetter where everyone had an operator number. The two numbers no one took were 13 and 69. I picked Lucky 13.
ReplyDelete