Superstitious prayers
Recently I've been suffering a medical ailment. It's nothing life-threatening, but it's serious enough to have required multiple visits to doctors and nurses and even one trip to the emergency room.
On the trip to the emergency room I got ushered in to see the doctor within five minutes. Knowing that trips to the emergency room—if you aren't dying—usually mean long waits, I was considerably surprised at this and commented on my surprise to the nurse who led me out of the waiting room and into the inner sanctum. "OK, but watch out," she said. "No need to say anything more about it. We've got a good mojo working here tonight, and we don't want to jinx it."
Her remark reminded me of a friend who is a trained medical professional. Battling an intractable case of arthritis in one of her knees, she had resorted to putting a bar of soap in a sock, then sleeping with the socked soap next to her knee. She was confident this lessened the pain in her leg.
