Superstisions

Apparently, I've made an Eskimo faux paus.  (Crystal, how do I spell that?) There are many superstitions I've long been aware of, but yesterday, I screwed up again. So in a couple minutes I have to go beg forgiveness and do the appropriate thing to get the bad luck taken away.

Before I explain this weeks screw-up, let's take a moment to look at some other pieces of information I was completely unaware of before I moved here:

-If you whistle at the northern lights, they'll come down, tear your head off, and play kick ball with it.  (This may have a little more to do with irritated mothers, but who am I to judge?)

-If you chew gum while pregnant, your baby will drool.

-If you raise your hands over your head while pregnant, your baby will get his cord wrapped around his neck. (oh, I see what you did there ladies. I don't want to reach up to the top shelf either.)

-The little people are real, and have powers. Don't mess with them.

There are others, but none are jumping to mind. With no further ado, this weeks' fiasco:

I was in the bilingual room, looking for one of my kids, so I could make him shovel snow, and I struck up a conversation with Bessi, the sewing and culture teacher. She's married to Warren the maintenance man, whom I love.

I was pestering our kids, and we ended up in a conversation about how I can't seem to keep ahold of any of my classroom scissors, and how several of the ones she has look rather familiar to me. Then I picked up a pair, and cut a loose string off my shirt.

Umm, apparently, that's very bad. Like, very, very bad. Shorten one's life bad. One is to remove the garment, and cut the string, or maybe have someone else do it for them. So now I'm in trouble. I was told that the only way to reverse the bad luck, and extend my now shortened life, will be to have someone sew on my clothes WHILE I'M WEARING THEM!! Luckily for me, I have a skirt with a one inch tear down near the floor. So I'm going to head back into the bilingual room, and let one of the kids put a couple stitches into my skirt. Firstly, this will reverse the curse. Secondly, hey, I have a rip in my skirt that I was going to sew up anyway, just not, you know, while I was wearing it!

So here I go, ready to beg forgiveness, and thread.

UPDATE: I am now cured of my curse.

I know that this may seem silly to everyone reading. I get that. When I first got here, I scoffed at pretty much all of these things. While I don't much hold with most of them, I find that I am much less likely to dismiss them out of hand.

For example, Uncle John (carving teacher, also, the man who owns my house) told me that if one had a tear in their clothing, the cold air on the skin could cause frostbite to that area, or even death, if untreated. And, since most people didn't have more than one change of clothes, or were unwilling to get naked in winter, it was necessary for one to have a friend sew up the hole. From this point of view, having someone else sew up your clothes while your in them would, in fact, lengthen one's lifespan.

I'm not saying I believe. I'm just saying that I don't not believe as much as I once did. Besides, I got a tear in my skirt sewn up by someone else, so that's always a bonus.