Rut Row

Say you do something twice in a row.

It could be anything, like saving the comics page for last, avoiding one side of a street or putting dingleberries in your greeble pie.

The first time you didn’t even notice. The second time could have been pure chance.

But the third time, what happens then?

By three, you feel like you’ve always read the front page and business sections first. You barely remember what it was like to walk on the other side of the street and you wouldn’t even think about having a greeble pie without dingleberries.

Okay, I made the last one up. Don’t roll your eyes. The premise holds.

By the third time, it’s tradition. It’s the way things are done. It’s a habit. It’s ordinary. It’s the rut that you would have to break out of if you were so inclined, which, most likely, you’re not.

After all, there’s a reason why you’ve always done it that way.

Superstitions probably got started like this. You notice when you do something different, and if a random bad consequence happens to happen, it’s easy to think of the difference as being bad luck.

Or, I suppose, if you’re an optimist (nice to meet you, I’ve never met an optimist before) then it would solidify the rut as good luck.

To be fair, I prefer to read the rest of the newspaper first. Except for the New York Times which has no comics, but I’d rather read that paper before I read the two with comics so it kind of counts.

And I’ve never walked down the same side of the street where, five years ago, a large angry dog once mauled Jonah even though I don’t think that dog is even there anymore.

As for dingleberries, well, they may not exist but there’s no way I’d try a greeble pie without them.

Laugh if you want to, but my first thought was unicorn sausage. I didn’t go with it because as you know, Auntie is a vegetarian. That’s another rut I can live with.