March 13 – Open an Umbrella Indoors Day

Posted on March 13, 2016

Don't walk under a ladder, or you'll have bad luck!

If a black cat crosses your path, you'll have bad luck!

If you break a mirror, you'll have bad luck – SEVEN YEARS of bad luck!

If you step on sidewalk crack, you'll have bad luck!

If you open an umbrella indoors, you'll have bad luck!

According to superstitions, there are lots of ways to bring bad luck down on yourself. But of course, I'm sure you know that these are silly bits of folklore that – although they have been handed down for generations – haven't got a shred of truth to them.

I mean, let's face it, every day bad things AND good things happen to all of us. We could look carefully at every day and think, “Well, here's an example of good luck, and here is an example of bad luck.” But the truth is, there really is no such thing as “luck.”

Everything that happens, good or bad, has an explanation. Sometimes the explanation isn't very satisfying. For example, a person was careful all of her life not to smoke, not to live in a place with air pollution, not to work in a job where she has to breathe toxic chemicals – and yet she still gets lung cancer. The explanation may be that she inherited bad genes. That explanation seems not only unsatisfying, it seems unfair! But it still might be true.

Here's another example: A couple of friends may enter prize drawings every week at the library summer reading program, and one friend may win three times over the course of the summer, while the other friend may not win at all. Again, it seems totally unfair! And we may want to say, X has good luck, and Y does not. But the truth is probably that X the winning and the not-winning were just chance.

A man named Thomas E. Knibb started National Open an Umbrella Indoors Day to encourage people to notice that, when they break the superstitious rules, nothing happens. Well, of course, stuff DOES happen, and like always, it is a mix of good and bad stuff. But there isn't a sudden, dramatic uptick of bad things happening after you open an umbrella indoors.

Check and see!

NOTE: Obviously, opening umbrellas anywhere can be tricky. If you aren't careful, you could knock something off a shelf or counter, or you could poke someone, when you open an umbrella. So...be careful!

Of course, to celebrate Open an Umbrella Indoors Day, you could do more than just test out superstitions.


You could create a private play spot...


decorate a room with a large garden-sized umbrella... 


build an umbrella fort (probably outside, where you have more space!)...






Also on this date:


Daylight Savings Time begins






















Decoration Day in Liberia





















Plan ahead:
And here are my Pinterest boards for:


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