11:11: The Revenge

I am selectively superstitious. I'll walk under a ladder, almost purposely in cocky quasi-defiance, but I'd rather not have a black cat cross in front of me. Hat on a bed or shoes on a table are two mandatory no-no's in my life, 24-7, never, ever, ever. Also, knocking on wood. Always. There have been times where I'll be having a conversation when something worthy of knocking on wood came up and I've dropped the convo immediately leaving the room to search for something wooden or paper, I swear. It's bordering on hysteria. There are a few other superstitions I have but I won't get into them all now.

When I was younger I thought something awful was going to happen I turned 21. I decided I might die when I turned 21. Reason being that every time I'd count something, it would be 21. I'd count how many steps from here to there: 21. Count in my head silently until a red light turned green: 21, and so on and so on. Suffice to say I've made it past 21 swimmingly, although I did get very sick when I was 22 but that doesn't count because I don't feel like making the case that it does.

So numbers have always been a thing with me. Counting this or that. Words, too. Whenever I see a word I read it backwards almost immediately. I'm not dyslexic, its just an odd thing my mind does on autopilot. If I see a sign and I recognise it says "loot" my brain will instantly tell me "tool" or whatever. It's completely involuntary, it just happens. Maybe my mind is telling me I'm a tool ? Could be.

So, yeah, I'm weird.

Anyway, a few years ago I started seeing 11:11 twice a day, almost everyday. Everything was eleven. It got to a point where I felt like I was looking for it; not to try and will it to be, but just because I knew if I looked, there it would be. It was scary.

I'd dealt with 11:11 before. When I was younger I used to see it a lot, too. In fact, I remember sitting at my Brother word processor clicking away in my journal that I had wanted to stay home with my mom on November 11th because she was off from school and I was secretly worried that something bad was going to befall her. I didn't stay home and she was fine.

But 11:11 and I have quite a history. I've even looked at active but slow/fast clocks and caught them at 11:11. It might actually be 5:30 in the afternoon, I get in someones car, they don't have their radio clock set right but my eyes will catch it when it turns 11:11. That used to freak me out. A few times I'd be in a rest stop, those big trucker ones in the mid-west, and they'd have alarm clocks for sale and the sticker on the package to demonstrate the fake LCD display was 11:11.

11:11 went away for a while, I hadn't been seeing it but the last few days, I've been seeing it again, usually twice a day, morning and night. I wonder why the F that is.

I did some research on it and there's all these lunatics who believe its some sort of symmetrical sign from the gods or whatever. They dress up in white scrubs and dance in circles over it. I guess I'm not much better than them really.

Just type "11:11" into Google and see what I mean.

I wrote up a real long essay on 11:11 a few years ago; I'll try and drudge that up for y'all in case you can't sleep and need something that'll make you drowsy.