I’m kind of superstitious. My culture where certain occurrences are not taken lightly is to blame. That, plus Charmed, a series I used to watch many years ago that introduced me to premonitions, charms and spells. Not that I’m a witch but there’s a significance I attach to certain events and dates that my pastor thinks I shouldn’t. For example, I fuss over Friday the 13th, widely believed to be a day of bad luck.

I’ve already checked my calendar and there are two other Friday the 13th this year, one in April and the other in July. On this ‘dark’ day, I hold my breath, fearing that something terrible is about to happen. I’m glad that so far, nothing serious has happened, like a debilitating accident or death of a loved one. Still, anything that happens out of order just gets me wondering whether it isn’t due to the curse of Friday the 13th. If I lose something or even get into an argument with a friend, I’m like here we go. 

I’m so caught up in these superstitions and have come to believe some of them over the years. For instance if there’s twitching on the upper part of my eye, something good will happen. But if the twitching is below the eye, that spells bad news. Then there’s when my palms itch. This one excites me because it means you’ll get money and believe it or not, I always do, a day or two later. The one that makes me apprehensive is the wild cat. Even when you know there’s no such cat in your neighbourhood, one surfaces and ‘meows’ outside your house for an extended period. And when that happens, someone you know has died or is about to die.

Because I tend to watch out for negative things around this Doom’s day, my bad luck this time around seems to have been the public transport nightmare I had most of the week. I think it has something to do with kids going back to school. Suddenly, getting a bus or taxi in the morning and evening is not as easy as it has been the past few weeks when students were still on holiday. Try getting one around 7:00 and you’ll agree with me. To stay ahead of the pack, I’ve learnt a few tricks, like positioning myself strategically as soon as a I see a bus approaching. This requires canny moves so that when the bus doors open, I’m right there and ready to get on.

Anything short of that means getting caught up in the shoving and pulling when you’re not even sure you’ll get a seat. Wednesday was the worst for me. After waiting almost an hour, three guys and a lady beat me to the all strategic location and so I missed a seat. The driver then asked the other passengers to squeeze in to make room for us but they jammed. I turned to leave and just then, the driver pointed to a seat directly behind his. There was a woman and a man and something told me they are a couple.

At first, it looked like they were willing to let me sit with them but as I soon realized, they weren’t. I only had room for one butt and no amount of shifting or sighing expressly got them to push in. 10 minutes into my journey back home, my knees were hurting from the unbalanced position I had assumed and when I realized I was about to fall off the seat, I opted to stand, thinking that would at least make them feel guilty. I know it didn’t because the woman just shifted to cover the small space I’d been occupying. By the time I got off that bus, I was seething and I remember asking God to make that couple go through the same sometime.

To be continued...
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