Here’s what happens when a whole family of black cats crosses your path

Suggested wine for today’s entry: My in-laws just returned from Italy and brought with them a list of new favorite wines. One is Gaja Ca’Marcanda Macari from Tuscany. The 2006 is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. The Englewood Wine Merchants  Web site says this wine, “possesses striking notes of graphite, tar, herbs, mocha, smoke, black cherries, earthiness and sweet French oak.” Got a 92 from Wine Spectator and from Robert Parker. Looks to be about $59 a bottle … sounds like it’s worth trying to find!

I am not superstitious, but I think we all get a little creeped on Friday the 13th. You don’t? Of course you do, you’re just trying to act like a badass.

Anyway, you would be creeped if you were me and not only did a whole family of black cats cross your path today, but they started as soon as they knew it was the 13th. What if you were awakened at 12:07 a.m. by a black cat throwing up on the sheets you washed yesterday?

Then, as soon as the alarm went off at 6:50 a.m., you plodded into the bathroom with a different black cat weaving in and out of your legs because the fatty wanted to be fed, then you — by mistake, of course — stepped on its tail because it was weaving and you were half asleep. So the little shit bit your ankle.

If both those things had happened to you before 7 a.m., you’d be thinking there might be something to this Friday the 13th thing, too.

And what if, when you went to get some very necessary coffee, still another black cat jumped onto the counter and knocked your very necessary — and very HOT — coffee all over your arm, yesterday’s mail and your husband’s phone charger? (Shhh…I dried it really well and he’s not a fan of my cats.)

Now do you see why the whole superstition thing is starting to get to me?

It’s OK, I told myself, this is just normal — you live in a house with three black cats. Now they’ve all pulled their little mischief and you’re done with it by 9 a.m.

I relaxed a little then, and dared to leave the house, but I only drove about 35 miles an hour all day and never left the right lane. I also used arm signals out the window to supplement my car’s turn signals. It doesn’t hurt to be careful.

Also, I stole about twelve of the sanitizing wipes from the dispenser at Kroger and put them in my purse to use throughout the day — be just my luck to get stupid swine flu because of the feline curse — but that didn’t work out all that well for me because my grocery list was on an envelope in the same purse.

By the time I got the flap unstuck to see what was written under it, the moisture had soaked all the way through the paper and it was basically paper mache with unintelligible, dissolved green felt-tip pen marks striping it.

I threw it away in the trash can out front of Kroger, thankful that the Salvation Army bellringers weren’t there yet, because I had green dissolved paper coating my hands and I certainly couldn’t have given the generous offering that I normally do without looking like I’d stolen the bills and the dye bomb had exploded all over me.

Next stop was a cute little upscale shop where I needed to get something for my husband’s 50th birthday. All the other ladies in there were in tennis togs, dashing in between their morning match and their lunch dates.

Two of them had the biggest engagement rings I’d ever seen — oh, and I went to high school with them — but I dodged them because I felt badly that I can’t wear my engagement ring anymore because I had to get it rebuilt on a band that snaps open to go over my deformed knuckle that the dog broke when I was just trying to take her for a nice walk on her leash.

But I’m allergic to something in the $750 contraption that they put on it, so now I can wear my ring but it causes a flesh-eating reaction. Mostly I opt not to wear it. I’ve been through about five layers of skin and the capillaries are looking awfully close to the surface.

Anyway, I was in too much of a hurry to get into a long discussion and I didn’t know if my black-cat-induced bad luck could affect those with whom I associated, so it was very considerate of me to snub the tennis gals.

I needed to go to the bank. There was a new sign on the door — one that I’d never noticed anyway — that said, “NO STOCKING CAPS. NO HATS. NO SUNGLASSES.” It might have said it more politely than that. I was smirking, thinking that, in general, bank robbers aren’t rule followers, so it would be pretty unlikely that they’d stop, look at each other, pocket their guns, take the Just My Size pantyhose off their heads, pull their guns back out, nod to each other and mutter, “well, they did say please,” then go in and demand the contents of the safe.

So that’s what was going through my clever and smug little brain as I walked in. I went to the teller and explained that I needed a lot of cash. (I didn’t want my hubbie to know how much I paid for his birthday present by charging it, did I?)

Then I realized that I was wearing my sunglasses. OHMYGOD, I thought. I just told her I need a lot of cash and I’m wearing my sunglasses and that is an infraction of the rules and any second now I am going to get slammed to the ground with my hands wrenched behind my back. Damn those cats!

But nothing happened. I know, I didn’t mean to alarm you, but it was pretty unnerving.

The only thing more unnerving was when I pulled my checkbook out to write the check and about eight little green balls of former grocery list rolled onto the counter.

If they didn’t look like boogers, nothing looks like boogers.

I would’ve launched into an explanation of the origin of the green balls, but decided instead to cut my losses, take my cash, get in my car and putter home safely.

It’s OK. We have branch banking here.