My MIL is VERY superstitious, which really drives me crazy because she's supposed to be Christian.
Some of her most annoying are:
You cannot cut down a tree or something bad will happen to someone in the family
Cannot clean a bedroom the same day someone moves out of it
Can't share your good news for fear of the "evil eye"
ETA: I should point out that these are truly fairly widespread superstitions in "the old country" (Iraq).
You know, Mary O., I would LOVE to leave her alone about them, but she used to live with us and would go ballistic when I went out to cut down a columnar buckthorn shrub (an invasive species that is illegal to plant) from our back yard. She also came in screaming at me when I vacuumed my SIL's old bedroom the day she moved out, because she didn't do it herself. She blamed me for my SIL's hubby being unemployed for 3 years, because it MUST have been my fault for vacuuming her bedroom the day she moved out. Sheesh!!
I would say, "Do you really think that this is how God works? That's not a very trusting attitude for a Christian to have." She nods her head, agrees with me, and then a few months later is on my case again about a new superstition I had never heard about before.
ETA: I can say with 100% certainty that I have absolutely NO superstitions. Maybe as a kid I played that "don't step on a crack of you'll fall and break your back" hopping game, but I never actually believed it'd happen.
Oh leave the old woman alone and let her have her super stations. That doesn't mean you have to abide by them, though.
Hi queen-
I am generally 'suspicious' of anyone with superstitions...lol
I always say a prayer if I pass a serious accident or the like...
I used to joke if a black cat 'crossed my path'...but then one 'adopted' us!
I have broken MANY mirrors...and yet...I still feel we make our own luck...or failing that...rise above it!
I want to be carried over the thresh hold of a new home...never was as a 'newly wed'...but am thinking...at MY age...it will happen sooner or later!! (thinking a nursing home??)
lol
Best luck!
michele/cat
The only thing I do is wait to give good news till it's final. Like if I get a letter saying I am going to receive money, I won't tell anyone till the money is in my hand. Seems like if I blab to early the good news ends up not happening for some reason.
There was a lady I used to work with that was ultra superstitious, if she found a penny on the ground she would pick it up and put it in her shoe. So we used to mess with her. One day another co-worker put 50 pennies on the floor, so this woman worked 8 hours with 50 pennies in her shoes.
Another co-worker glued a bunch of pennies to the floor. She found a way to pry them up.
Once, when we were leaving the parking lot, I saw her start to pull out onto a street. Suddenly, she slams on the breaks, gets out (in the middle of the street!) and start spitting on the road. Apparently a black cat ran in front of her car, and spitting on the path where it ran to "cancel out the bad mojo" Nuts. :)
Lots of Christians are superstitious. I think it's more of a cultural thing than a religious belief.
I'm not superstitious--I believe more along the lines of Karma and Law of Attraction (pos and neg).
My brother and sil lived by a couple of Russian descent that were extremely superstitious. If you left the house & had to go back in for something, you couldn't go back in the same door, salt over the shoulder, on and on and on. Honestly, I don't know how they got anything done!
Why are people being so mean about this? It's a Just For Fun question, no reason to attack the asker for not agreeing with her MIL. Sheesh.
I personally am not superstitious, but my grandmother is! (My Father's Mother, and yes it drives my Mom crazy!) She says if there is a lightning storm at night, you have to sleep in a feather bed. I have no idea why on that one.
If a bird flies in the house, someone is going to die. That one is fairly common though.
There are a few about snow that I don't remember fully, I think one is that if there is lightning during a snow storm that there will be floods in the spring.
Personally it makes me laugh.
I personally am not superstitious but my mom is. Here are just a few that I have heard over the years but do NOT believe them.
Can not sweep under someone's feet or they will never marry.
Black birds in the yard mean death.
Red birds in the yard mean unexpected company.
Spill salt and you have bad luck.
There are a ton but these are just a few that I remember at the moment.
It sounds more like an anxiety than superstition for her! Those are odd...
of course I do.
-not to step of bread crumbs
-if a black cat cut my way, I have to take 3 steps back to take away the curse
-if i praise a child on his/her beauty I touch my nose, to take away the evil eye
-i i say we haven't had this happened yet (like sickness, or something bad), I have to knock on wood.
and many more. i am a catholic too.
One that drives everyone around me nuts is that you cant pass on the stairs. I dont know where I got this from but I swear its just bad luck =)
Very funny!
The only one I can think of offhand is my mother in law would always freak out if there was the slightest breeze and we had any of our babies outside. She was worried that the wind would go in their mouths and damage their health. That seemed bizarre to me.
When I was younger I had some OCD going on, and I had to do everything an odd amount of times. For instance, I would have to flip the lightswitch three times. I had to take an odd amount of steps to get to the bathroom or I would have to start over. I had to turn the faucet on and off an odd number of times. I had some feeling that if I did not follow those rules, some sort of doom would happen. Glad I outgrew that!
That woman gave birth to the man you love and is the grandmother of your children. She grew up in another time and place that we could never even begin to understand. Those cultural nuances are hard to let go of if they have been part of your whole life. Cut her some slack.
Everyone has little superstitions. Anyone who says they don't isn't telling the whole truth. Who hasn't, at least once in their life, crossed their fingers for good luck or when telling a fib or got nervous walking under a ladder or when a black cat crosses their path.
There have been periods of time in my life since I was a child that I would notice all the digits on a clock being the same. 2:22, 5:55, 11:11, etc. It would happen several times a day for a few weeks and then go away. I decided (or heard somewhere) that you should make a wish, so I do. Right after my mom passed away last year, the "same digits phenomenon" occured very often and for a long time, so I associated it with happy thoughts of my mother--like she was sending me a smile or something.
Silly, but makes me smile.
