Superstition

My boss, the Chief Executive, is not what I would call a superstitious man. In fact, he is not many things. Despite all the things that he is not (many of which I am) we get on rather well together. I would probably say that we regard each other with bemused respect. He used to work in the arms industry. I used to work for my student’s union. He’s a fifty something dyed-in-the-wool conservative ("with a big c"). I’m a late-twenties feminist socialist vegetarian. His idea of a joke is to raise a finger for a moment’s pause when the train is going through Grantham, "in memory of the great lady." Needless to say that I believe he only does this to get a reaction. Even more needless to say, I hope, is that I never give him the pleasure of giving any kind of reaction at all.

Michael the Boss. Dedicated rationalist. Veers wildly between frighteningly competent, and un-nervingly disorganised. One minute is showing you how to program complex formulae into Excel, and talking to hundreds of people at a conference at the drop of a hat, the next is unable to turn on his computer, or operate his phone, without childlike cries of distress to his PA, "Marie! Marie!!". But through all this, always absolutely and totally rational.

Except…

In our management team meeting, whenever we mention the Disaster Recovery Scenario planning that we do periodically, he always, without fail, will say at some point, "Oh, of course and we must have a practice. Because if we don’t have a practice, a disaster will happen. But if we do, then it’ll be ok."

And upon hearing this utter rubbish, instead of saying, "What? Are you honestly trying to tell us, Michael, that our best strategy in order to avert a possible disaster, is to have a planning session where we run through possible scenarios, and that it is this fact of everyone having done this process (not any changes or physical preparations we make as a result) that will ensure that the building is not flooded, or the power does not go off for days? Is that what you’re saying? Because if so, you’re a fool!" Instead of saying that, everyone smiles and says, oh yes, of course, yes, we must. Yes, that’s sensible. Thank you Michael.

I would scoff and mock in a more public forum than this, where it not for the fact that I have acted equally irrationally. When Jack and I were trying to buy our lovely little house, there was a period of months where neither of us dared to talk about living in the house in anything but the most conditional of conditional tenses. It was an unspoken rule that to depend upon it too heavily was tantamount to calling up our solicitor and calling the whole thing off. We spent weeks saying, "Oh, and if we get this house…. in September, when we’re living in East London (touch wood)…. and our house – no! I don’t mean our house! – I mean ‘the house that could possibly be ours’….damn! Now I’ve gone and ruined it!"

Surely the Ancient Greeks, living out their days under the gaze of capriciously cruel and childish gods, constantly fearful that their livelihood might be whipped away on a whim, or swept from them in a temper because of a mis-timed sacrifice, were never as fearful of tempting fate as we were during July 2005.

Jack and I aren’t superstitious in any other way. As I said to him, "Why is it that perfectly rational, well-educated Londoners don’t appear to believe in any kind of superstition… apart from the fact that you can ‘jinx’ something by expecting it to happen?"

He had no answer. Just as we both had no answer, this month, to why exactly it was that both of us felt that it was only by frequent and confident predictions that my period was bound to arrive any day now (and me carrying a sanitary towel with me all the time, as well, just to back this up) that we could ensure that it would not in fact arrive, and that I would be pregnant.

Of course, this tactic didn’t work. But it still made me laugh.

with love,
therumtumtugger
xxxx