Thirteen

No, I'm not gonna talk about horny catholic bishops and cardinals abusing 13 year old kids. I think the Pope should do that himself.

However, my subject is kind of related, but very remotely.

Have you noticed that many (American) air planes do not have seat row 13? The row after 12 is labeled 14. And the same is the case in some hotels; the 13th floor has shrunk to a superstring-like micro dimension. Above the 12th floor is the 14th.

What the Hell, do the air lines and hotels think that their customers can't count? If you count the seat rows from the front of the plane, 13 is still 13, even though the label above is 14. How stupid can it be? And if you count starting in the cockpit, the 12th row becomes the 13th; probably best to take out that one too, just in case.

Some years ago, on a geology field trip to the Delaware Mountains, we were visiting the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. Our guide took us to the elevator, which was labeled: “Maximum number of people: 12”. He counted the people in the group and got to 13 (including himself). He hesitated for a few seconds, before he said: - It will probably be OK. We started our 740 feet decent to the bottom of this fantastic limestone cavern. Finally, the elevator made a strange hick-up and stopped , at 741 feet. So there we were, stuck in the elevator, for more than an hour, waiting for someone who was able to open the doors. In the meantime we tried to entertain ourselves with bad jokes, mostly about Judas and stuff like that >:|