Broken mirrors and the rules of bad luck

February 1st, 2008

(Notes from Tuesday’s subway ride)

Breaking a mirror gets you 7 years of bad luck. Got it.

But what if you break the same mirror into many pieces? Does that multiply the bad luck? If I break one mirror into 3 pieces is that 3×7 (21 by my estimation) years of bad luck? Or do you not count multiple breaks occurring in a single breaking incident?

What about this: I break 2 mirrors, lets say one today and one tomorrow. Is that 14 years of bad luck or 7 years of really bad luck?

And this: you’re carrying a mirror and trip over someone’s boot. Do you get to share the bad luck with the owner of the boot? 3 1/2 for you and 3 1/2 for them? Then again, you’re the one who dropped it, sucker.

Not all mirrors are created equal are they? Some have got to be more durable than others. What if a feeble old lady walks along, drops a mirror, and sends it shattering into a million pieces? Would she drop dead on the spot from 10 million years of instant bad luck?

Let’s say you were flying a F-15 fighter jet and bombed a mirror factory. Would the rest of your life, so impossibly crammed with bad luck, be plagued by totally improbable events? Your luck is so bad there is not enough time in a day to experience ordinary bad luck, so crazy stuff would happen to you like every time you lifted your hand you’d poke your self in the eye.

Who makes the rules and who enforces them? Or does nature keep tabs? Is there a bad luck fairy? There’s probably so much bad luck to keep track of and dole out you’d need specialists. Like one guy who keeps tabs on people walking under ladders and opening umbrellas indoors.

And how do you tell the difference between bad luck and just shit that happens?