Lucky Charms
“You go back to Washington tomorrow, and you confront that cursed cat.”
“But the cinnamon–”
Abuelita reached into her pocket. “You need something stronger than cinnamon, mi amor.”
She took out a torn playing card. The queen of hearts. She kissed it and pressed it into my hand. “La Reina has been with me for thirty years. She is my special good luck charm for the blackjack table. You put La Reina in your pocket, and soon when I fly to Washington, you will show me where you defeated that gato malcriado. Yes?”
El gato malcriado. The misbehaving cat. I looked at the playing card with the red lady wearing the triangle crown, holding the blue flower. She seemed to be telling me, “You can do it, Fina. We can do it.”
Maybe we could. I did feel stronger, braver, smarter than the Demon Cat. I would solve the mystery and break the curse of the stupid cat.
“I will do it, Abuelita. I promise. I’ll be brave and I will face the Demon Cat.”
I put the torn card in my pocket. “I’ll take good care of her, Abuelita.””
Who’s the Most Superstitious?
Actors are also notoriously superstitious. They religiously refer to a particular Shakespeare production as “the Scottish play” and forbid whistling in dressing rooms.
Baseball players are also well known for a variety of superstitions: no one talks to a pitcher throwing a potential no-hitter, even changing their walk-up music to break out of a slump.
CIA operatives are also superstitious. Before leaving on a mission, agents stop by the statue of America's first spy Nathan Hale. They leave either 76 cents (the year Hale was executed) or a quarter (in honor of the man depicted on the quarter, General George Washington, under whom Hale served.)
The money is donated to the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation.
Political Good Luck Charms
James Carville was the political strategist behind Bill Clinton's campaign for president. He wore the same underwear for days on end...as long as the campaign was going well.
John McCain had a stash of lucky charms: a compass, a feather, a penny, a rock, and a lucky pen. If he needed a boost, he'd add a pair of L.L. Bean rubber-soled dress shoes. (We should point out that he lost his bid for the White House.)
Even Papa had his own good luck ritual: touching the nose of Winston Churchill on his way to vote. (Something that has gotten Welcome to Washington Fina Mendoza banned from the U.S. Capitol gift shop because – according to the Congressional Visitors Center – it encourages tourists to touch things they are not allowed to touch.)
Fina’s Good Luck Charms
Fina's grandmother bestows her own good luck charm on Fina: the Queen of Hearts from a deck of playing cards called La Reina.
Abuelita uses it for luck at the blackjack table. Fina uses it to give her courage to battle the Demon Cat.
But do lucky charms really work?
Researchers at the University of Cologne told one group of golfers that they were playing with a "lucky ball." They sank 35% more putts than those who got "regular" golf balls.
"Our results suggest that the activation of a superstition can indeed yield performance-improving effects," says the study's co-author Lysann Damisch. The study was published in the journal Psychological Science.
Incidentally, Abuelita might have been wrong about prescribing cinnamon to ward off bad luck.
According to The Times of India, cinnamon is used to attract money, something helpful to a blackjack player, but less so for a 10-year-old detective looking for a Demon Cat.