tell us your weird personal quirks :D

[miss djax]

i'm not superstitious at all, but if i get on an airplane i have to touch the outside of the plane or else it might burst into a flaming fireball

:D

who's next?

[Anne]

my goodness--- I do that.

The one time I didn't, told myself it was a silly superstition, my plane was bombed.

[Matty]

i do the salt over the left shoulder thing whilst cooking. Blind the devil or whatever it is meant to do.

[Valheru]

Colonic irrigation.

Don't ask.

[miss djax]

i do the salt over the left shoulder thing whilst cooking. Blind the devil or whatever it is meant to do.

is that really what that means?? i always wondered

[Anne]

I've always thought it was to chase death away, salt being life...

[willynilly]

I tend to check I set the alarm 5 or more times. Even resetting it to make sure. I also repeat the last sentence I just said sometimes two or three times.

[Anne]

I double check locks. and tickets.

But then, that's not weird. That's smart... ;)

[Matty]

as far as i know, and i'm no mythologist, the practice stems from the time that salt was valuable and spilling it was deemed a sin. If you spilled it, ergo, sinned you were supposed to prevent the devil seeing you sin and claiming your soul by blinding him. For some reason the devil only observes your actions by looking over hte left shoulder.

Summin like that anyway.

eta.

The widespread superstition that spilling salt brings bad luck is believed to have originated with the overturned salt cellar in front of Judas Iscariot at the Last Supper, an incident immortalized in Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous painting.

According to an old Norwegian superstition, a person will shed as many tears as will be necessary to dissolve the salt spilled. An old English belief has it that every grain of salt spilled represents future tears. The Germans believe that whoever spills salt arouses enmity, because it is thought to be the direct act of the devil, the peace disturber. The French throw a little spilled salt behind them in order to hit the devil in the eye, to temporarily prevent further mischief. In the United States, some people not only toss a pinch of spilled salt over the left shoulder, but crawl under the table and come out the opposite side.

http://www.saltistry.us/id77.html

[Anne]

and I remember salt = life (it's a preservative and ritually holy in most religions) and spilling it makes death come acallin'.

I'm sure we're both right.

[Matty]

for sure. it all stems from when it was a highy valued commodity. legends rituals and stories commonly grew up around such things i believe.

There is a great book by Mark Kurlansky on the subject (simply called Salt), as well as another awesome one by him called COD which is part historical storybook, part old school recipe book which i suspect you would like.

[Free in Freeport]

I'm constantly fidgeting - doodling on paper, stretching muscles, picking at my cuticles, straightening out paperclips, adjusting clothing, etc. Strangers probably think I have fleas.