They say Friday the 13th is a day of bad luck. This is of course, merely superstition. But on the 13th of June 2008, a Friday, a series of unlucky streaks happened to me within the day.

Bad Luck #1
When I arrived at the office that day, I switched on my PC and began prepping myself for the day’s usual workload of two ring tone arrangements. For those of you who are not familiar with the nature of my day job, you can get some idea at a previous post. I was planning to finish my arrangements as early as possible so I can go home by 5pm in time and get some rest prior to a gig with my band at 9pm.

To my surprise, I was assigned three ringtone arrangements for the day. The reason being, because my batchmate did three the previous week, so now it’s my turn. So instead of going out at 5pm as planned, I ended up staying until 7pm.

Bad Luck #2
A friend was supposed to go with me to watch our gig. This friend of mine never saw our band perform yet so tonight was the 1st chance. The plan was we’d meet up at 7pm… but as I was forced to stay at work ’till 7pm, I naturally went to contact my friend. I called from the office but my friend was busy cooking. I called again after reaching home at around 8pm but my friend was eating. I felt really bad. We were only able to talk the day after, so I had to apologize and stuff.

Bad Luck #3
My band was slated to play that night at a bar called “Kampai” somewhere within Quezon City (Philippines) as a guest performer for the album launching of our friend band, Syalam. I’ve never been to Kampai before so I’m not familiar with how to get there. Following my bandmate’s text messaged directions, I took a cab with my violin and my hegalong (native Philippine lute). As the cab reached the given landmarks, we searched the vicinity for a venue that matched my bandmate’s description.

To cut the long story short, we didn’t find the landmarks but I sensed that the driver was just driving too fast that we might have missed any subtle landmarks. The U-turn slot at that area was way, way far. So instead of giving the cab driver more cash, I opted to go down and walk it back. Yeah, I was able to find the venue, but after losing some pounds walking.

Bad Luck #4
The climax of the night. Just a few minutes right before my band gets up onstage, I opened my violin case to tune my violin. As I was adjusting the pegs, I noticed that the bridge was a bit slanting, and might fall off. So I adjusted it right.

However, as I was adjusting it, the two highest strings snapped! And they snapped almost together with only a few milliseconds difference. And I had no spare strings at that time. If life was an animated world, my face would be portrayed as “pissed-off” red and fumes would have been smoking out my nose. And not helping is the fact that my bandmates were already setting up their stuff onstage leaving me the only one left behind.

Good thing was, I have a personal way of dealing with snapped strings. I recycle them on the spot with some practical twisting and bending of metal. This method does not work 100%, but it was the only option I had for the night. But I had a gut feeling that it was my unlucky streak finale for this Friday the 13th, so I took the chance. The strings held together during our 4-song set and the crowd seemed to love our show. Whew!

In the End…
Friday the 13th may or may not be the cause of unlucky vibes all around, and maybe these incidents were a sinister coincidence for me. But as they say, when you experience a chain of unlucky events, a really, really good thing is about to happen to you.

So did I get that really, really good thing? Read the next post to find out!