Black cats and signs.

Being a modern mouse I don’t take too seriously the superstitions of my parents generation, black cats, walks under ladders, crossing on stairs, that sort of thing. Actually one of our cats is black; ‘one eyed Dave’ by name, polite food Hoover by nature, so my path is constantly crossed by an ankle high black presence wanting more. As he completely disappears in anything approaching darkness I often wonder if he actually knows he’s there when the lights go out. But anyway I seem to have acquired new superstitions of my own. It is for example bad luck to blow a candle out if next to an ashtray. My most prevalent these days seems to be ‘one must achieve the pavement before a passing car reaches one’s line of crossing. I seem to have taken the Green Cross Code into the realms of mysticism. Today I was crossing the exit lane of Sainsburys car park when I noticed a car fast approaching. I focused on a point on the opposite pavement between two posts, fast enough to avoid the nebulous effects of superstitious failure, but not so fast as to appear to be suffering from OCD, and in a sense I succeeded. Being intent on my feet positions I failed to realise the reason for the two posts. They were there to support a neck high sign saying, “Drop off point only.” While successfully avoiding the car I had a significant sign accident. There must be a moral here somewhere.