Almost Superstitious

I’ve never put much stock in superstitions, but this past Friday the 13th almost had me convinced that I should. It was the day from Hell!

It was really Thursday night that set events in motion. Let me explain.

I manage a sporting goods store in Orlando. The morning of Friday the 13th I was scheduled to do what we call a turn-around--I closed the store Thursday night and opened it the following Friday morning. Now, when closing the store it’s close to midnight before I arrive home, but it’s a 5:45 am wake-up call when I open it. Needless to say, turn-a-rounds are draining.

Well, Thursday night of the 12th, I arrived home close to midnight. Fearful that I might sleep through my alarm on my cell phone, I decided to change it to something loud and long, which I did. In retrospect that wasn’t such a hot idea.

The sun was peering through the blinds of our bedroom window when I awakened that morning of Friday. “This is not good,” I thought. You see, it’s still supposed to be dark at 5:45 in the morning. I checked the time. 7:15! Evidently, in my tired state of mind the previous night, not only did I change the alarm on my phone I disabled it as well.

In a panic I shot out of bed and fled to the bathroom, where I cranked on the shower and impatiently waited for the water to heat up—why does everything take more time when you’re running behind schedule? After setting an all time record for the shortest shower ever taken, I quickly dressed, filled my duffle bag with the day’s necessities (lunch bag, snacks, etc), grabbed a handful of something resembling a bagel, strapped my duffle bag onto my motorcycle, hopped on and headed out to work, hoping to not be more than a few minutes late.

Of course everybody without a care in the world was behind the wheel of their vehicles and driving in front me (another phenomenon when you’re running late), but hopefully I could make up some of it by doing 80mph on the turnpike. Such were my plans. Reality was a whole other story.

Not until I was too far down the road to turn around did I realize that in my haste to leave I left my “SunPass” home. A SunPass is an electronic device that, as long as you keep money in your SunPass account, allows you to enter and exit the turnpike without stopping at the tollbooths to pay. Forgetting my pass was going to cost me a little more time, depending on how long the line was at the booth. Then something akin to horror filled my heart, I had no money on me! Now I was left with just one alternative. I’d have to take the back roads.

Now, those of you who aren’t all that familiar with our turnpike system here in Florida let me explain the thinking behind it. In theory, users of the turnpike pay for its upkeep and expansion through the payment of tolls. To encourage drivers to use the turnpike system, instead of going around it, the road’s always laid out so that it’s the quickest way to and from highly visited areas: the airport, the theme parks, the coastline, etc.

But, not only does taking the back roads mean taking a less direct route to where you’re going it also means lower speed limits, two-lane highways, 20mph school zones, and a ton more traffic congestion. This all added up to one thing: I was really going to be late for work.

Arriving 30 minutes late, I hustled into the store, stowed my motorcycle gear on top of the lockers in the back office, and started putting my mind in manager mode. I then did a very foolish thing--I tempted the Gods of fate to toy with me a little longer by saying to a fellow employee, “One thing about it, things can only go up from here, can’t get worse than how my day’s started.”

First, I was informed that our cashier called in sick the night before. Well, we could manage one person down. But then a second employee called in about the time I got settled in. That left just me and two subordinates to work the store, a store of 65,000 square feet, until our mid-shift person arrived at 11: am. That person would later call to say he would be at least an hour late. Timing of lunch breaks just went out the window.

Well, to shorten this long tale of woe, foot traffic that morning was medium, which, for a crew of three was a bit more than we could handle. Then a big shipment of miscellaneous sporting goods, which had to be unloaded, checked in, sensor tagged, and assigned bar codes, arrived. This would take the combined effort of the cashier, shoe guy, and me, all while serving customers in our respective assigned areas of the store. ARGH!

Needless to say, at the end of the day, I went home worn out, frazzled, and wondering if there wasn’t something to this superstition stuff after all. But then I remembered my parents. They were married on Friday the 13th—55 years ago. Need I say more?

NOTE:Having a total knee replacement. I'll try to write a few pieces while laid up.