MY PROBLEMS WITH THE NUMBER THIRTEEN

Some you may have noticed that I become uncomfortable when the Doc40 comments number thirteen. I have no idea when or how it started. There must have been a time when the number thirteen cast no dark shadow or held no sinister if unexplainable significance, but I am unable to remember it. I must have come upon me when I was unaware. Maybe that’s the way of it with phobias. And I count myself lucky that it’s the fairly innocuous number thirteen that bothers me, and I’m not so challenged by superstition that I’m afraid to touch doorknobs because of the germs. Indeed, I have actually twisted and used the fear as an aid to greater productivity in my work. And I also console myself with rumors that Stephen King suffers from the same malady. The following is from Wikipedia. I had always though the concept of unlucky thirteen had something to do Jesus and his twelve disciples, but they're not mentioned here.

"Thirteen is regarded as an unlucky number. Fear of the number 13 is termed triskaidekaphobia. The thirteenth of a month is likewise ominous, particularly when it falls on a Friday in some English-speaking cultures, Sweden, Russia, Poland, Belgium and Germany (see Friday the 13th) or a Tuesday in the Greek and Spanish-speaking world. Thirteen may be considered a "bad" or "unlucky" number simply because when a group of 13 objects or people is divided into two, three, four or six equal groups, there is always one leftover, or "unlucky", object or person. According to another interpretation, the number 13 is unlucky because it is the number of full moons in a contemporary year, but two full moons in a single calendar month (mistakenly referred to as a blue moon in a magazine article of the 1940s) only happens about every 5 years.Early nursery rhymes stated there were thirteen months in a year because of the natural moon cycle that was used to count the lunar year. In England, a calendar of thirteen months of 28 days each, plus one extra day, known as "a year and a day" was still in use up to Tudor times.It was suggested by Charles A. Platt writing in 1925 that the reason 13 is considered unlucky is that a person can count from 1–12 with their 8 fingers, two thumbs and 2 feet, but not beyond that, so the number 13 is unknown, hence frightening, hence unlucky.[1] This idea discounts the use of toes or other body parts in counting.Another hypothesis about the origin of Friday the 13th as an unlucky day is attributed to this being the day that the Knights Templar were slaughtered in a collaboration between King Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V finishing with the burning at the stake of Jacques De Molay.The legion with which Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon was the Legio XIII Gemina or the 13th legion.13 is the 6th prime number. 6 is sometimes considered an unlucky number due to its association with 666."

The secret number is 12A