Rabbit Rabbit

At some point growing up someone told me that it was good luck to say "Rabbit, rabbit," the first thing in the new month. My interpretation over the years was that one has to say it first thing in the morning because saying it at night if you are up past 12 is too easy. The challenge is to remember to say "rabbit, rabbit," before you say anything else. There is an increased challenge when you are waking up not in your own bed -- at summer camp, or a new year's slumber party (I am talking about being a kid, here) because waking up your unitiated friends to "rabbit, rabbit," or even to silent-lip mumblings of same, is odd and as I kid I did not always like to be odd. Still, my take on luck superstitions has always been no pain no gain. If I was waking up with people who might judge me for my rabbit utterings I understood that I would have more luck the louder I let the rabbits out.

But when I think about it, the pain/gain philiosophy shouldn't work for luck. The whole point of luck is that you don't have to work for it, you don't even have to deserve it, it just happens. Maybe there are a few pennies you can pick up to help the cause, but all in all, luck is just beyond control. Then I guess I should not feel bad about forgetting the rabbit ritual 94% of the time. It's not like I have missed luck that was out there. Because that would kind of take the wind out of my sails to know that if I had just said rabbits a little more often all my wildest dreams would come true simply by chance. Why I am writing a thesis if just saying "rabbits" can get me my dream job? You see?

I tried looking up this superstition to get connected to its mythical or mystical roots. There isn't much there. Some people say different variations of the charm, three rabbits or rabbits of different coloring, or rabbits on the night of the last day of the month and hares in the morning. The UK seems to figure heavily in the history, but not because of a particular incident where a blazing luck rabbit appeared in the sky at the new moon or anything. Rabbits are percieved as lucky (think of all the lucky three-footed rabbits out there) and at some point somebody told a bunch of kids that chattering about them on the first would be lucky. I can see a parent using this to get someone to go to sleep just so they could wake up and rabbit in the morning.

Regardless, I rabbited this morning. Twice actutally. Once when I first woke up, and then again when I actually got out of bed -- just in case. So we will see what the new year brings, and maybe next year I will undertake a randomized controlled trial of rabbit-years verses non-rabbit-years. And that is silly because: A. How would I ever set up the experiment? and B. I am certain I would never find a positive relationship between luck and rabbit, rabbit. Still, I do it. I have taken multiple statistics courses, and yet I rabbit. Darn that person who ever told me about it. Or maybe thank them? Anyway, these things are viral, so when you are saying "rabbit, rabbit," on Feb.1 you can blame me.