Superstition Ain't the Way

If you are at all like me, that title will leave you no choice but to sway your head back and forth while singing along with Stevie Wonder. If you're not like me, you are likely wondering what the hell I'm talking about. If this is your first time here, I'm sorry. Otherwise, you're probably used to it by now. While it is probably my favorite song of Stevie's -- I love the bass guitar in that song -- that's not the point right now.

What is the point is that I'm not generally a suspicious person. Sure, I've been known to go in for the whole "It's 11:11. Make a wish," thing, but I think that might be I kind of like making wishes. [Aside: I've recently been informed that I've been doing it completely wrong for years, which may explain why none of those wishes have come true. But I can tell you that revelation was a rude awakening. Who knew there were rules to be followed after making the wish?! And why isn't this information included in the training?!] Plus, when my Hoosiers quickly squander a big first half lead early in the second half as they try to get going after apparently doing shots of Jägermeister in the locker room, I've been known to do some serious bitching at someone watching with me for having the temerity and stupidity to have changed seats. I've even been known to explain in no uncertain terms that I will be forced to thrash them if they don't move back RIGHT NOW.

Other than that, though, I don't go in for the whole superstition thing. I don't throw salt over my shoulder if I spill it. I don't do ... other things supersitious people do, none of which occur to me at the moment. Still, superstition has been dogging me since Friday. Friday night, I received two pieces of bad news. One was from a dear friend and one was about my dad. Everyone's still alive and everything, but the news was anything but pleasant in both cases. In neither case am I able to really do anything to help, as I live hundreds or thousands of miles away. I can't even offer the standard but powerful Abs Hug of Comfort. It's a total bummer.

On top of that, I had all these fun things planned for the weekend, and Mama Abs pragmatically insisted that I still do them since there was nothing else I could do anyway. So I did them, traveling to UVA for a football game, playing golf on Sunday morning, and playing football on Sunday afternoon. But the bad news out there was kind of messing with me the whole time, sort of like a sibling playing that oh-so-hilarious "I'm not touching you" game when you're trying to do something.

Exacerbating the situation has been the nagging thought that bad things happen in threes. I don't even know where I heard that, but it's just there, like "the little scratch on the roof of your mouth that would heal if only you could stop tonguing it, but you can't." So I was kind of waiting for that third piece of bad news all weekend long. Still am, really. It kind of messes with me, and it is definitely not good times. Plus, after dealing with a weekend like that, it has to be Monday today. Totally not cool.

Maybe I should pay less attention to the bass guitar and more attention to Stevie's lyrics.