It's Not So Good For the Rabbit

IT’S NOT SO GOOD FOR THE RABBIT
By
DeBorn Luzer

I was eavesdropping on a conversation last weekend. Actually, I wasn’t technically eavesdropping, I was nodding in my recliner after a big meal of black-eyed peas and it was my mother talking. She was talking about being superstitious and it just started my half-asleep mind to wandering.
I guess that, in some way, most of us hold to some superstition, or another. I don’t really have any particular one that stands out as an adult. I did, however, when I was younger. I can remember that I had a special shirt that I would wear when I wanted things to turn out good, such as getting a kiss from a girl on a first date, or getting an “A” on some report I had to do in school. For the life of me, I can’t remember whether it really worked, or not, even though I do remember the first kiss. I also had a “good luck” nickel that I carried in my pocket all the time. It couldn’t have worked too well because it seemed like I was in trouble all the time.
One of the big things in our days was to have a rabbit’s foot with a chain on it so that you could use it for your keys as well. I hope that these brought some sort of good luck to the ones that carried them because it surely couldn’t have been good luck for the rabbit. I think that most of the ones that I saw were fake, anyway. I don’t remember anyone that I knew suddenly getting rich, or famous, and declaring, “I owe it all to my lucky rabbit’s foot”.
We all know most of the basic things which bring bad luck, such as walking under a ladder, having a black cat cross our path, breaking a mirror, or knocking the salt shaker over. We also know some of the things to do to ward off evil, or bring good luck, such as carrying the aforementioned rabbit’s foot, carrying a lucky token, wearing garlic around our necks, throwing the spilled salt over our shoulders, or finding a four-leafed clover. We know we can also turn bad luck around by doing such things as turning around three times while chanting a certain phrase, or burying chicken parts in hollow stumps, or rubbing a frog under the full of the moon.
What I don’t understand is who is in charge of the “good luck”, or “bad luck” spells that are cast upon us whenever one of these things occur.
I mean, is there just one “good luck” fairy and one “bad luck” demon that watch over all of us, or are there many, many of them so that each one of us has our own? Do they constantly watch us so that when we, for instance, break a mirror they can write down the exact time and date so that when the seven years has passed they will release us? What if one day they have a fire and all the records get destroyed and we have to live with eternal bad luck because they can’t remember who is supposed to be getting the good, or the bad, luck?
Where did all of these superstitions come from anyway? Was there someone who saw a black cat cross the road in front of him, and were they walking or riding, and did they immediately have bad luck and blame the cat? I can see it now it now, “I swear, officer, I wasn’t drinking. There was this big black cat, must have been five feet long, crossed the road in front of me and forced the car right into this big tree. I tell you, them black cats are bad luck.”
I guess it’s kind of fun to believe in them, as long as you don’t take them seriously. After all, what harm can it do? I don’t believe that they cause luck, either way, but just in case I’ve got my fake rabbit’s foot hanging on my key chain.