The other day, my son asked me why the number 13 is unlucky.

I usually take his questions seriously, trying my best to answer them, even if I must resort to Googling or guessing. I was driving and couldn't use the first technique, so I considered the second. But there's nothing inherently malevolent in a number, is there?

"I ... uh, don't know," I finally admitted. He was, unsurprisingly, unsatisfied, and wanted examples of when 13 would be unlucky.

"Well, you're not supposed to have 13 people at a dinner party," I said, realizing as soon as the words were out of my mouth that he would have no idea what that means. Even before COVID, I would never have willingly let anyone old enough to vote see my home's condition.

"Or a hotel," I added, quickly, before he could start in with the questions about why his parents don't have dinner parties or adult friends or meals that don't include mac and cheese. "There's usually no 13th floor in a hotel."

He was blown away.

"How do they not make a 13th floor?" he marveled, picturing a building with a gaping hole where the offending story would have been.

"Well, they make one," I said. "They just call it the 14th floor."

"But that's tricking people!" he exclaimed, offended.

"Everyone knows it's really the 13th floor."

And though he found that strange, I explained that it's that way with all superstitions: The superstitious are all kind of tricking themselves — and I know from firsthand experience.

Because I exist in that same weird in-between land, the place where I do superstitious things like cross myself before icons and knock on wood, while also not believing any of it helps.

"What could it hurt?" I think as I chase my kids around the dining room with handfuls of salt to throw over their shoulders.

(They hate it, the salt thing, and the more they run away, the more I insist. I'd feel terrible, after all, if one of them fell off the slide and broke his arm because I failed that day to properly season him.)

Before the kids were born, I underwent IVF looking like Mr. T, so covered in chains I could barely lift my head. For each appointment, I wore my baptismal cross, my grandmother's wedding ring, a replica Alexander the Great coin and a gold cartouche engraved with a Libra scales symbol.

And I don't even believe in astrology!

Well, for a while, in high school, I was really into astrology. I read my horoscope and asked potential crushes what their sign was, until it occurred to me the whole thing was easily debunked by the existence of time twins.

But by the time I was old enough to have trouble having kids, I didn't believe it anymore.

That hasn't stopped me, though, and it never will.

Maybe it's my Greekness.

In Greece, old ladies spit at cute babies, but it's only to keep the bad luck away.

"What a sweetie!" they say, quickly hocking a loogie so no evil spirits accidentally put the evil eye on him. "Ptu! Ptu!"

It's just the polite thing to do. And what could it hurt?

I admit, it makes no sense, but, in the grand scheme of things, we control so little in this world. We can't control how smart or happy or rich we'll be. We can't control births or deaths or who falls in love with us or doesn't.

We sure as heck can control, however, whether we open an umbrella in the house.

And that's why, when my kids are grown, the baby clothes are all donated and the house no longer looks like a toy warehouse, I'm sure I'll start having dinner parties.

But when I'm making the guest list, there will never, ever be 13 names on it.

It's superstitious, yes, but it's also one risk factor I can mitigate.

And, really, what could a little superstition hurt?

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

Photo credit: Tolga Ahmetler at Unsplash