Rabbit Rabbit, Pediddle and Beyond

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Today is the day to know that I will be your Valentine if you need me to. As long as you don't smell bad.

You know how when you're bored at work, you head down to the magazine store and browse around? If you happen to do that today, check out Modern Bride and ElleGirl, both of which have pieces by me (a piece on Peter Island and my usual column on high school freshman Kelly Mulvaney, respectively.)

Some people like the Valentine's Day thing, other people do not, so to be equal opportunity, today we're just going to talk about random traditions that people have, after I talked about them here.

Rabbit Rabbit, Pediddle and Beyond

From Bryan Bedell:

I was in Boy Scouts, and if you were sitting around a campfire and if the smoke from the campfire was wafting towards you, you'd say (or yell) "I hate rabbits" and that was supposed to make the smoke go towards someone else. It didn't really work at all, but I guess the point was to give the 12-year-olds something to say rather than whining about the smoke. And maybe wistful memories of a more innocent time, or some shit.

I thought it was just my troop. we did a lot of drugs in my troop. We were sort of the Bad News Bears of Scouting. But I just searched ("I hate rabbits" smoke) on google and found a lot of other references to it.

From Eric Wrisley:

When I was a kid, we used to duck whenever we drove under bridges, or else your head would get cut off. I think at one point there was a rule that if it happened 7 times in one car ride, you were "dead." This evolved into picking our feet up when going over railroad tracks, to avoid getting your feet cut off. When I was learning to drive, my instructor said that you just want to coast when you're going over a railroad crossing, neither accelerating nor braking. This works out fine for me, since I MUST lift both feet off the floor when crossing the tracks. (I no longer duck under the bridges, though.)

From Matt Roden:

In Australia we also do "punchbuggy" when you see a VW, and continuing the violent themes, "A pinch and a punch for the fist day of the month", which is usually followed by "A hit and kick for being so quick."

Also, when people see these things that we called Santa Claus', which I guess are like dandelion spores, floating past, you're meant to grab them and then tell them what you want for Christmas then let them go, and they'll take your wish back to the North Pole.

And if you catch a lady bug and it pees on you, that's good luck.

From Meghan Haynes:

No doing laundry on New Year's Day: This is a superstition that most every black person I know abides by. If you do laundry on the first day of the year, you will "wash" someone out of your family (i.e. they will die within the next few days). Unfortunately, it's been tested in our family, so we're very strict about it. Also a black thing: You must have at least one spoonful of black eyed peas on New Year's Day so you are lucky throughout the year, and you also should eat something green (greens, peas, cabbage, broccoli, etc.), because this represents money/wealth throughout the year. And if you're sweeping, the broom cannot touch somone's foot. If you do, they have to throw salt over their left shoulder to avoid bad spirits.

No splitting poles: If you're walking with a group of people, and there is a pole or some other obstruction (tree, ladder, whatever) ahead, everyone must walk around it the same way

Make a wish when the time is your birthday (i.e. if your b-day is January 31st, you make a wish everytime it's 1:31. June 13? 6:13, etc.)

From Bob Sassone:

When I was a kid I was told by my mom that if everyone in a room is talking, and then suddenly it is silent for several seconds, look at the clock: it will be quarter to or quarter
past the hour...

And the weird thing is, it was often true.

From Christy Goldfeder:

I grew up in the suburbs of Long Island, and for some reason, there was a lot of wish-making among kids out there. We made wishes before blowing out dandelion puffs. If you found an eyelash on your cheek, you could put it on the end of your finger, make a wish, and blow it away. My sister still thinks that ladybugs bring luck if they land on you.

There were also a lot of rituals around birthday cakes: of course, making a wish before blowing out the candles, but also the birthday girl would have to eat the first piece cut from the cake and needed to be silent while eating the cake or the wish wouldn't come true.

Other Rules: You could not step on sidewalk cracks or lines. If you had to pass by the scary old witch's house, or cut through her lawn to get to your friend's house, you had to run so that she wouldn't see you.

My own personal ritual to ward off vampire attacks in the middle of the night (usually after awaking from a nightmare): make sure that your whole body is covered with the sheet. Lie perfectly flat, and try not to breathe too heavily so that the vampires won't see you (and therefore can't get you).

From David Mogolov:

For some reason, ever since high school sometime, I've only set alarm clocks for times ending in the number 6, and I've almost always used multiple alarm clocks. I remember deciding on to set the alarm for 6:36 because I had an alarm with a six-minute snooze setting, and I always hit it at least once, so I decided to set it six minutes later, rather than be woken at 6:30. Of course, I started hitting snooze and sleeping until at least 6:42. Not that any of my planning mattered: I was always late for school, because that snooze button got pressed a lot.

What's strange is that I adhere to the digit, not the logic. I no longer have a six-minute snooze, and I usually want to set my alarm for a quarter-hour. Logically, I should then set it for, say, 7:21 if I want to observe the six-minute rule. But I don't. And maybe this is why I use multiple alarms: I set one for 7:16 and one for 7:26. That way I can shut off the first, knowing the second one will follow in ten minutes. And then I hit snooze, usually several times.