Pessimists Unite! Destroy the “Lucky Number” Myth!
By: Dana Mitchells

You’ve heard of ‘em: those eternal favorite numerals we humans cling to like a surfboard on a tsunami.  But what’s the deal behind all these little favored digits of ours? What is it exactly that compels us to choose THAT PARTICULAR NUMBER to be our lucky one?  I ask because it seems we have grown tired of the oft-used number 7.

There are some theories I have been banging around as to how we choose which numbers are our lucky ones. One way this happens is experience: won a game of roulette with that number, had the greatest or luckiest day of our life on that number, scored that many touchdowns in a single game.  Another way we come to a certain number to be our lucky one is by calculating the square root of 42,567,876,900.2 trillion then multiplying that by three (don’t forget to carry the one).

Or you can do what I do and just use a number that came to you in a dream.

I wonder how this whole mess with numbers being lucky was started.  I guess a caveman got the idea that since he catches more animals if he uses five traps instead of four, then five must be a number of good fortune.  I suppose nobody told him to try using six traps or even seven, because word got around really fast that five was the number of traps to use to catch more little critters to roast over the fire for dinner.  Pretty soon, this fun bunch started to revere the number five in all its glory since, after all, they only had five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot, unless they weren’t too far along on the evolutionary ladder.  From there, everybody got it into their heads that something will only work if they use a certain number or they will win more games of chance by betting with a certain number.  See, that’s why all our cars today have only four wheels and all wheelbarrows only have three; someone was too fooled by the idea that these are the numbers to stick with since they were the same exact number of wheels used in the creation of these things.

But can it really be the number itself that is our gateway to eternal luck?  Do numbers really hold some kind of mystical power over our fate? Numerologists would answer with a resonant “yes.” But anyone who’s played their state lottery has their doubts.  Take, for example, the farmer in Hopping Toad Lake, Iowa, who constantly uses his favorite number to play the lotto with.  He’s lost his farm, his wife and six children, his tractor, his Ford Trailblazer and even his three-legged dog named Skip, but dagnabit if that lucky number 5 will make him a millionaire overnight and get him out of debt.

Just as there are “lucky” numbers, there are also unlucky ones.  Fans of the Friday the 13^th movies can elaborate on this better than I can, but you have to bear in mind that for every good, there is an evil.  While the number seven may be lucky to you, it may just be as unlucky for a poor housewife in Minnesota who went bankrupt and lost her husband after having seven children.   

When using a good luck charm, the forces of luck are your biggest challenges to contend with.  Sure you talk the talk, but can you walk the walk? The guy using a lucky rabbit’s foot in a game of poker would only claim that he had not wrapped the charm up in a purple cloth then soak it in muddy water for a week prior to the game should the charm not work.  It seems the gods of fortune require some kind of seedy, often bizarre ritual involving items of good luck before actually using them.  By this token, you could actually lose the lottery even if you used your lucky number, simply because you didn’t bang your head into the wall seven times while screaming “I am Batman!”  This is just one of the many excuses that a person could use should their “lucky” number not come through for them.

The people who you should really feel sorry, though, are the poor sods who live in fear of being without their lucky numbers.  They just have to have seven in their address (I’ll tell you from personal experience that that doesn’t do crap!) or they have to have seven rooms in one home, seven animals, seven children, seven horseshoes over seven doors, seven mirrors or even seven Ming vases!  Dare we assume a child of a superstitious mother was given seven names?  Sad, but true.  Sadder still is the fact that these people actually believe that such a thing will save them from the next Armageddon. 

As you have probably guessed, I’m not much of a fan of this whole “lucky number” gig.  Yes, there is luck, but there are no lucky numbers.  Just because you won something (or even saved your life) by using a number, it doesn’t mean it was the number itself that brought you the luck.  You just got lucky. 

As we all know, Hollywood and even writers such as myself like to perpetuate the myth that numbers can be lucky.  We like to mess with our viewers’ and readers’ heads with stories about how a gambler always won his games using a certain number or how a sailor saw his lucky number on the ship who rescued him from the sea.  But that doesn’t mean that numbers are actually lucky; it just shows how gullible people can be sometimes.  The fact that you have found a $20 bill under the mat on your doorstep on the tenth of every month has nothing to do with it, because you still have to use that very number to win the betting pool, the lottery, the jackpot at the casinos and a bet on a horse with that very number.  And unless you’re the luckiest person in the world, that isn’t going to happen.