A little ‘stitious’

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor

If you have never watched the TV show “The Office,” you’re missing out. Even though it has been off the air for more than a decade, it shows up in reruns on a few different channels, so I highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t.

One of the stars is Steve Carrell, who plays the boss of the titular office, and he’s prone to saying dumb things. One of my favorites is when he’s talking about the possibility of the office being cursed after a string of unfortunate incidences. He says, “I’m not superstitious, but I am a little stitious.” Which kind of makes sense, as the prefix “super-” is often used to make words more amplified, like sonic and supersonic or hero and superhero. But in this case, there actually is no word “stitious” — at least not in normal English. Of course, that’s what makes the line funny, but even funnier (more funny? super funny?) is that

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we, the viewers get it. I mean, I’m not going to avoid leaving the house on Friday the 13th or turn around and go home if a black cat crosses my path, but we all have a little bit of superstitious behavior built into us.

As someone who will most definitely put on my “rally cap” if my team is behind or needs a big play, I’m absolutely “a little stitious” on occasion. You might be too.

Maybe you’ve crossed your fingers or thrown spilled salt over your shoulder or avoided walking under a ladder… not because you definitely believe it would be bad luck or anything, right? It just makes sense not to walk under a ladder… you know, for safety reasons.

One silly thing I am guilty of in this vein is I will irrationally avoid stepping on any cracks in the sidewalk when I can. Yes, even at 51 years old, I have “step on a crack, break your mama’s back” ingrained into my very being. And look, I understand that it’s nonsense, but my Mom is 71 years old and she can’t take any major back injurues at this point, so why take a chance?

I bring all of this up because yesterday was New Year’s Day and I just know many of you made sure to eat your greens and black-eyed peas… because, well, you never know, do you?

Just a little stitious, right?