Your Friday the 13th Survival Guide

Knock on wood, cross your fingers, and hope for cake.

A black cat enters the field of play during the round 18 NRL match between the Penrith Panthers and the Cronulla Sharks at Pepper Stadium on July 10, 2016 in Sydney, Australia. Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

It’s Friday. It’s the 13th. And if you’re reading this from under your doona with a salt shaker in one hand and a rosary in the other, you’re officially a friggatriskaidekaphobe.

And yes, that’s a real word. It sounds like something you’d splutter into your Prosecco after a bottomless brunch gone wrong, but it’s basically ancient Latin-Greek-Norse for “I’m not coming in today, Mercury’s sulking, a black cat gave me side-eye, and my toast landed butter-side down.”

Judas Was the 13th Guest at the Last Supper

The number 13 has been blamed for more global catastrophes than your ex’s Bali group chat.

We’re talking Judas being the 13th guest at the Last Supper (cheers, mate), Loki also being the 13th guest and crashing a perfectly civil Valhalla dinner party and getting Baldur murdered, and the entire Knights Templar arrested on Friday 13th in 1307 just for minding their own business in matching outfits.

Honestly, history treats the number 13 like that flaky group project partner who is never around when things are going well but magically turns up just in time to tank the whole thing.

And it doesn’t end there.

What’s the 13th Tarot card? Death. Subtle as a frying pan to the face.

Then there’s the Mayans, who decided to freak everyone out by tying the 13th baktun to the end of the world, and then gave us 2012, the year we all collectively pretended to understand Mayan maths and stocked up on tinned beans.

And let’s not forget that British teenager who got struck by lightning at 13:13 on Friday the 13th while attending an air show.

It’s the spiritual equivalent of the universe yelling “SURPRISE!” and then throwing a pie in your face.

Rebranding of Hotel Levels

Modern civilisation, in all its science-loving glory, is still terrified of the number 13.

Hotels skip from floor 12 to 14 like we’re not onto them. “Oh yes, I’m staying on the 14th floor,” says Karen smugly, while secretly wondering if Room 1401 is actually Room 1301 in a fake moustache.

According to the Otis Elevator Company, for every building with a labelled 13th floor, six others just quietly pretend it doesn’t exist.

It’s the architectural equivalent of saying you’re “between jobs” when actually you’ve just been ghosted by Indeed.com.

Apollo 13

Even NASA, the people who send things to space on purpose, got spooked after Apollo 13’s near-catastrophic mission and renamed the 13th shuttle flight something that sounded like a printer error, STS-41-G.

Brussels Airlines redesigned its logo because it had 13 dots. Can you imagine the staff meeting? “I don’t care if it looks like a colonoscopy result, just add a 14th dot!”

And you know it’s bad when airlines, who routinely trust your life to a man named Craig in a hat, skip row 13 altogether. As if turbulence is going to be like, “Oh wait, this row doesn’t exist. I’ll just jostle row 14 extra hard instead.”

How to Turn the Cosmic Tide

Now, if you’re hoping to reverse your luck today, fear not. There are some wildly unhinged things you can do to turn the cosmic tide, according to Irish and European folklore.

You can wear your clothes inside out like you got dressed during an earthquake, sneeze three times before breakfast (not while holding coffee), or walk in the rain because apparently being soggy equals spiritual cleansing.

Also on the list, carrying an acorn in your pocket (not a euphemism), sleeping on un-ironed sheets (finally, a superstition for the chronically lazy), and breaking clear glass but NOT a mirror because we draw the line at seven years of bad luck and a cleaning fee.

And the animals!

Seeing three sheep equals good luck. A bird pooping on your head? Also good luck, apparently, although that may have been invented by someone trying to cheer up a person with bird crap in their fringe.

If you spot a frog in your house, don’t panic, you’re not in a biblical plague, you’re just spiritually aligned with amphibians now. Congratulations.

So, is Friday the 13th actually cursed? Or is it just a very dramatic date that needs a hobby?

Either way, if your Uber cancels, your phone dies, and your dog stares ominously at the corner of the room, don’t panic. Just check the date, knock on the nearest piece of wood (preferably not your own head), and shove an acorn in your pocket like a very confused squirrel.

And if all else fails, stay home, light a candle, wear your top backwards, and watch a Julia Louis-Dreyfus sitcom. She was born on Friday the 13th and look how fabulously she turned out.