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BY now you've noticed that 6/6/06 passed without incident. My own irrational fear of certain numbers (but not fear of irrational numbers -- ha! I kill me!) doesn't include 666 or 13. The number 714 creeps me out.

I don't know why. My best guess: When I was in high school, the warning bell for first period rang at 7:15, and I habitually checked my watch just before it rang. Perhaps this led me to associate 7:14 a.m. with hurry and dread.

How did other superstitions start? Were black cats actually more ill-behaved? Was opening an umbrella indoors, or in good weather, apt to knock over lamps and scare the cats, who turned black and ran away, breaking mirrors and scurrying under ladders?

The only origins I can know for certain are those I witnessed. I made up two superstitions when I lived in Stockton. First: straw fortune-telling, or bendymancy. For breakfast every school morning, I had a bagel with melted Velveeta and a cup of Carnation Instant Breakfast -- not the complete and nutritious meal that my mother would have preferred.

I drank the shake through a straw (Bendy, not Krazy -- after all, I wasn't a baby). Mom bought these straws in

500-packs from the Pak 'n' Save, which printed grocery packing directions on its brown paper bags, headlined with the educational but dismissive "Pack Your Own Savings!"

These white straws came with assorted stripe colors, one quarter of the box was red, one yellow, one blue and one green. I decided that the stripe color of the straw I randomly chose would foretell the quality of my day. Red was horrible, yellow was unpleasant, blue was good and green was great.

And if that makes sense to you, you should read Mark Haddon's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time," in which an autistic boy decides to make up his own fortune-telling superstition.

Even if I knew it was all fake, even if I drew a red-and-white straw, at least it gave me a worldview, some resignation or confidence so I could frame the events of the day.

The second superstition baffles even me. A hundred years ago, the fad of phrenology washed over the United States. By feeling the bulges on top of one's head and determining the shape of the skull and brain, the doctrine went, a phrenologist could predict someone's personality, aptitudes and tendencies.

# posted by Medical Information : 2:57 AM