Humor Post #52 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

I’m on spring break so I have lots of time to kill. And one of the things I did while killing time was glance at the calendar on the wall. And what a horror it presented. I mean blood is still pouring out of my ears from what I saw. And that is… this Friday is Friday the 13th. Oh, no!! Surely this is the end of the world! Why didn’t we build a panic room before now? Where are my pills to take in case of nuclear radiation?

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m being sarcastic. I don’t know why everyone gets their shorts all twisted because of this thing. It comes a lot. According to probabilities, which I had in sixth grade math, the 13th of any month has a 1/7 chance of being a Friday ’cause the 13th’s gotta come on some day of the week and Friday is 1/7 of them. Makes sense, no? This year there are three of them — in January, in April, and in July. That’s way higher than average so maybe I need to recalculate. But anyway, I don’t think we have a whole lot to fear.

I checked out the days and dates of some huge disasters. Most of them you’ll know. Or if you don’t, you should look them up ’cause they were fierce. Certainly we’ll find a bunch of Fridays and 13ths attached to them, won’t we? At least one dynamic duo for sure, you would predict. Think again.

The Sinking of the Titanic — Friday, April 14th, she hit the iceberg and she sank 2 1/2 hours later of Saturday, April 15. You gotta assume she was doing very well, thank you very much, on Thursday, April 13th.

Pearl Harbor — One of the worst days in American History. Sunday, December 7th.

9/11 (the attack on the World Trade Center) More Americans died on that day than on any day in our history — Tuesday, September 11th.

The giant tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands in southeast Asia in 2004 — Sunday, December 26th.

Hurricane Katrina that almost destroyed New Orleans — Monday, August 29th.

The earthquake in Haiti that killed hundreds of thousands of people — Tuesday, January 12th.

The tsunami last year in Japan that almost nuked the whole country. Friday, March 11th.

Finally a Friday. One out of seven, just like I predicted. And where are all those 13ths? Uh…. nowhere, that’s where.

So for all you wusses out there, go hide under your bed this Friday. Crankenfuss will be here enjoying his vacation, pretty darn sure a giant catastrophe won’t wipe him out. Hope my mom doesn’t ask me to mow the lawn that day though. That would maybe make me rethink my whole argument.

I’ll write more about this later. I’m gonna show you how Fridays and 13s can be lucky, not unlucky.

For now I remain
Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss