Dealing with My Deadly Friday the 13th Curse | Jazzed About Stuff

Why I Will Always Associate Friday the 13th With The Time I Was Involved In Attempted Manslaughter

The Catholic school that I attended between the time I met my best friend in second grade until our graduation day before going off to separate high schools made every single sixth, seventh, and eighth-grader volunteer for safety patrol. The job involved forcing middle schoolers to either open the car doors for arriving or fleeing students and taking turns as crossing guards before and after school for one full week at a time. I only ever did this crossing-guard duty on two occasions. The first time went completely fine without a problem. The second time involved the changing of local legislation, the cops, crying students, and Friday the 13th.

I wore a bright yellow vest over my school uniform that consisted of a neatly ironed white polo and a green plaid skort (or a yuppy cross between a skirt and shorts because it was the early 2000’s) that stayed put by Velcro. It was a little larger for my small eleven-year-old body, but I made do with what I had. It was on the second or third day of my turn as a crossing guard after school when another small student and I looked both ways to check for cars, extended our heavy stop signs out into the marked…