Following 12 and preceding 14...

Who here believes that the number 13 is unlucky? Or worse a hex? Hmmm. Do I? I dunno but am sure I don't want to stay on the 14th floor of any hotel or condominium unit. 14th floor is, anyway, the new 13th floor.


Come on now! Who are the engineers fooling? However you view it, the number that comes after 12 is 13. Go and check the structure of a building. If it skips a floor after 12 but an empty floor is really there, then 14 is a safe floor. It's really the 14th floor. Otherwise, 14th floor is the floor we all rather shun.


I remember, there's this point in time when I was offered a job by a Makati based company. Thing was, I didn't remember any instance that I forwarded my application to them. They sent me a text message with the complete address where I should go. It says 13th floor of X building. Geesh. Eerie.


Guess what? I did not show up. I never did, even though the same message was sent to me a couple more times that month. Just too spookish.


Can I say now that I believe the superstitious belief? Am I one of the many who have triskaidekaphobia -- fear of the number 13?

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Recently, Paul, Tita Nini, Lizzie and I watched 1408. It's a film based on a Stephen King short story with the same title and starred John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson.


We all liked it, although the flick was only given a B rating. Well, B is not bad afterall.


Why is this relevant to this entry? Good question. It's all because it involves the number 14, which I just said is the new number 13.


1408 is the room in Dolphin hotel in Manhattan, which is said to be an evil room. At least, in Stephen King's short story. Famous ghost writer, Mike Erslin (John Cusack) received an anonymous postcard from the said hotel with this message,

"don't enter 1408".

Next thing, he insisted booking a reservation in that room even after the hotel's manager (Samuel Jackson) warned him that no one lasted more than one hour in room 1408.


Staying in that room changed the author's life forever.

Just watch the flick yourselves. haha. All I can say is I don't want to hear the song, "We've Only Just Begun" again!

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See? 14th floor is the new 13th floor, indeed. And add 1+4+0+8. What do you get?


What's in the number 13, by the way? Dunno too but here's a lil research I did.

How is fear of the number thirteen demonstrated?

* More than 80 percent of high-rises lack a 13th floor.

* Many airports skip the 13th gate.

* Airplanes have no 13th aisle.

* Hospitals and hotels regularly have no room number 13.

* Italians omit the number 13 from their national lottery.

* On streets in Florence, Italy, the house between number 12 and 14 is addressed as 12 and a half.

* Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue in France, socialites known as the quatorziens (fourteeners) once made themselves available as 14th guests to keep a dinner party from an unlucky fate.

* Many triskaidekaphobia, as those who fear the unlucky integer are known, point to the ill-fated mission to the moon, Apollo 13.

* If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil's luck . Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names.

Here's additional information from Wikipedia about 13th floor:

Skipped

Most commonly, it is skipped altogether. Although the thirteenth floor has been skipped in terms of numbering (e.g., for hotel/apartment/suite numbers), the floor numbered 14 is technically the thirteenth floor of the building; it is simply not numbered as such. Any calculations involving the height of a building based on the height of a floor should take this into account.

12A

Sometimes the floor is simply renumbered as 12a; this does not affect the numbers of the higher floors.


Special designations

Other buildings will often use names for certain floors to avoid giving a floor on the building the 13th floor designation. One such example is the Radisson Hotel in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where the 13th floor is called the Pool floor.


Uninhabited

Sometimes, the floor is put to some other use. For instance, the thirteenth floor of One Canada Square houses the air conditioning equipment and no rentable offices, though the owners insist that this is merely an architectural coincidence.


Letter "M"

Because the letter M is the 13th letter in the English alphabet, some people may use a letter "M" as a substitute for the 13th floor, such as 12, M, 14, and so forth.

Good thing two Friday the thirteenths had passed for this year. In 2008, it's going to be in the month of June. Good luck!