Humor Post #53 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

In my last post I gave you a ton of evidence (well… at least a big bag full) why Friday the 13th is no worse than any other day. Today I’ll tell you why Fridays and 13 are really pretty cool, especially Fridays. Now I had to think hard about this and do some real research so give me some credit, okay, and cut me a little slack if there’s some itty-bitty part you don’t agree with.

Anyway, here’s the dirt in two parts:

WHY FRIDAYS ARE COOL
— While I freely admit that I like Saturdays and Sundays more than Fridays (for obvious reasons), I still think Friday comes in third for most people in the world. First off, being a student I really hate Mondays. Y-e-c-c-h-h! Yeah, you can say that with a lot of phlegm in your throat ’cause that’s how most people feel about Mondays. School starts, work starts, you know the routine. But Friday is by far the best day of the week except for the weekend. Fridays — there’s so much hope and expectation that comes with that day. There’s that expression TGIF. I mean people are thanking God it’s Friday. You won’t hear any expression like TGIM. There’s even a restaurant called that. And there was that viral video last year with some girl singing “Friday, Friday, Friday” that got her famous and probably rich and all it showed was her hanging out in the car with her friends. And anyone who likes to shop knows that the very top #1 shopping day of the year is BLACK FRIDAY, the day after Thanksgiving. That’s when people get so juiced they’ll spend all night at a Wal-Mart ready to stomp on everybody else to get inside for all those bargains. I read an article once about people forming these sophisticated teams to get all the best deals at Best Buy, almost like Search and Destroy missions.

— Now for poor old picked-on 13. It’s so hated that there are skoodles of buildings all over the world that don’t have a 13th floor. You get on the elevator and there’s no 13. The buttons just skip from 12 to 14. What kind of lesson is that for little kids? No wonder we’re #25 in the world in math It’s so hated that few pro athletes ever choose it for their uniform number. But I found a few exceptions. Wilt Chamberlain for one. He was so monster, I guess he didn’t worry about being #13. Didn’t seem to hold him back much. His first year in the pros, he AVERAGED 50 POINTS A GAME! Dude, most guys never score that much in ONE GAME! He once got 100 points in a game! Also Dan Marino, one of the best quarterbacks ever, wore number 13. Now I’ll concede that he never won a Super Bowl, so maybe that was 13’s fault, but Kurt Warner did and he wore it. (In case you didn’t know, he was on the Arizona Cardinals.)
— Another cool thing about 13 is most all kids want to get to that age. That means you’re a teenager, dude! Way cooler than being just a kid. You’re closer to driving, dating, being a big star in hip hop (well, I hope that’s true), you know, all the awesome stuff that goes along with being a teenager. I never heard of anybody saying, “Aw, I think I better stay 12 ’cause I’m going to have nothing but bad luck all next year.”
— Finally a great thing about 13 is the USA is all about that number. Here’s the Great Seal of the U.S. The two sides of it are on the back of the dollar bill and it’s supposed to be really important, so important they argued about it like for weeks way back around 1790 or something when they were putting our country together. It’s got 13’s all over it. There’s 13 stripes on that shield, the eagle is holding 13 arrows in one claw and 13 olive branches with 13 olives in the other claw. And there’s 13 stairs on that pyramid up to that creepy eyeball sitting on the top. (BTW, who put that thing up there? That thing could give you nightmares.) On top of all that, everyone knows we started as 13 colonies and we have 13 stripes on our flag. Try comparing that to all those other jillion flags that have other numbers of stuff on them. Let’s just look at the countries that have 3 stripes on their flags. Let’s start with Afghanistan, Andorra, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. They all have three stripes. Where’d you rather live — in the good old USA or there (if you even know where they are)? And that’s just the A’s! So 13 hasn’t exactly put us in the crapper, has it?

I rest my case. And my brain. If you can think of how this argument is all messed up, let me know and I’ll tell you how messed up YOU are. Unless you’re nice in your criticism, of course, and then I’ll return the favor. After all, it’s good if we all get along, right?

from Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

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