When my ex first arrived in the U.S. (at the time as my au pair, long story), I greeted her with bread and salt, which is a Ukrainian/Slavic custom when welcoming guests. Just a little joke/nice gesture. I had the salt in a little ramekin. When we got in the car, I opened the driver’s side door, and just dumped it all on the ground. Well, she was very superstitious (black cats, broken mirrors, all the classics) and apparently, spilling salt is considered a bad omen. So I assume knowingly dumping it on the ground isn’t great. Then she screamed, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” and I think said some things in Ukrainian, etc… I froze, apologized, and learned something new.
I just realized maybe you meant the relationship bit. I was in my mid-late 20s at the time. Was very religious, had gotten married very young, we moved to D.C. and I took a big-shot Capitol Hill job. Found out wife was cheating and found myself holding 99.99999% of the bag with two kids. While making ~$35k - $40k and working on fucking Capitol Hill/living in D.C.
Thankfully, the religiosity paid off at that point, as a coworker put out word at the church I attended and a very generous couple (mostly the woman) provided me with months of free full-time, in-home child-care. Really incredible and kind, even though I see them as pretty wacky, probably kinda hateful folks these days. Anyway, that bought me enough time to scramble to look at all my options. I didn’t really have any good ones. But I realized if I could scrape enough together for an au pair, it might be barely sustainable. I went through the process and interviewed various au pairs. Settled on a 23 or 24-year-old schoolteacher with a Master’s degree in Philology from Ukraine. An absurdly perfect choice to nanny my kids. As I think about it/type about it, it’s just all so absurd, but yeah.
We exchanged e-mails, did Skype calls. Looking back, they were already way too friendly.
Then we hit a snag. After meticulous preparation, filling out/printing/reviewing every document, she traveled the 2-3 hours to Kyiv and met with the immigration official at the American consulate. Denied. Oh shit. I mean, really, oh shit. I’m on borrowed time now, and suddenly we’re just told straight up, “No. Denied.”
I believe we may have appealed once before I ultimately spoke about it with the member of the House of Representatives for whom I worked and by whom I was admittedly rather beloved, for better or worse. One problem being that the more you appeal/are denied, the less likely you are to get approved in the future. So it was all crumbling.
As an aside, my chosen pet issue at the time was Ukraine (this was maybe ~2014 or 2015?). After some research and e-mails and calls on my part, I eventually arranged/my boss agreed to a call with the ambassador to Ukraine to present my case. I used every power at my disposal (for better or worse) and I guess that worked, because she made it through on her next appeal.
Having gone through that trial together. Her being in her mid-20’s. Me being her “host dad” in my late-20’s and literally actively divorcing while raising my kids. She’s stepping in to help, but in America for the first time. I mean, come on. What a joke. BUT I WAS A SAINT. I WAS A FUCKING SAINT. It was a few weeks(?) before anything actually happened and SHE FUCKING STARTED IT. But also it was never entirely conventional, looking back, as I’m pretty sure we finished a bottle of wine and slow-danced her first night there? The timeline is a little fuzzy.
It’s a rollercoaster of a story that sounds potentially gross, potentially made-up, I don’t know. It’s weird to type it out. But that’s the gist of it.
Sure, I actually posted it in response to another comment below:
I’m originally from the southeastern U.S., so…yeah…grew up pretty ignorant. Full-stop. We weren’t superstitious (unless you count faaar-right religious fundamentalism, young-earth creationism, Jack T. Chick, grown men sprinting laps and hollerin’ “in the spirit,” occasionally maybe waving a gun on stage as a sermon illustration, etc…).
Anyway, from my perspective, the greeting/joke was over. We got in the car. Now I find myself with a little bowl of salt in the car. Can’t exactly put it in the cupholder. It was like a tablespoon or two I poured from the container in my kitchen. It was salt. It came from somewhere down there in the earth, it’s not hurting anything. I dumped it. It didn’t even occur to me that someone could be offended. I would never do it, because why would I, but it’s like if I opened a little paper salt packet from McDonald’s a little too forcefully and it spilled and someone was like, “YOU FUCKING MOTHERFUCKER, HOW DARE YOU, DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE UNLEASHED.”
As an aside, once we were romantically involved a little while later, being the romantic that I sometimes ashamedly am, I one day picked some flowers for her on my very nature-y walk home from work. Tiger lillies. The next day, I came home and the whole house smelled like lillies, the windows were open, it was like a movie scene. Then she came up to me bleary-eyed and swollen-faced and sadly explained that lillies happened to be THE thing she was most-allergic to.
One of these days, I’ll figure out what went wrong in that relationship.
I’m not at all superstitious, but so quick to attach sentimental value to things that I would instinctively know that this salt can never be thrown away or used in cooking for the rest of my life. I’d have to get an ornate urn for that salt, and it would become a thing I’d have to lift each time I’m dusting the shelves. Fucking salt.
TIL spilling salt isn’t considered bad luck in the US. As you can see in the wiki you linked it’s a European (not just Eastern European) superstition, along with being a bad omen in many religions in the world.
I’m from Canada and it’s considered bad luck here, though generally not taken all that seriously.
Can I ask what part of the US are that you’ve never heard of spilling salt to be bad luck? Also why would you just dump it on the ground?
I’ve lived in Canada for at least twice my own natural lifespan and I’ve never heard of spilling salt being bad luck - I do it all the time on my driveway! What part of Canada holds this superb stition?
I’ve heard of spilling salt as being a bad thing, but tbh I don’t think anyone where I live believes in them.
except for my grandma who would SWEAR by putting lima beans in her pocket on new years day and got upset if we didn’t, or tossed them at eachother as kids do
I’m convinced the superstition is a misunderstanding over time of things that were, on their own, bad luck. Salt used to be expensive, so spilling some was bad luck because you would have rather kept it all for use instead of wasting it.
Mirrors would have also been expensive, especially when they needed to be transported before the time of smooth suspensions. The whole 7 years thing could be from it taking around 7 years for one particular broken mirror to be replaced.
Or the ones that invite accidents, like walking under a ladder (which usually implies someone is working at the top and might drop something, so odds of death are a bit higher under ladders). Or opening an umbrella indoors, where things are more crowded and you might injure someone or break something.
Though the black cat one is probably just racism.
Anyways, I bet that’s where they started and then humans being kinda (or very, depending on the circumstances) stupid and liking jumping on bandwagons they don’t always understand to fit in, left us with some people thinking those things cause ghosts to haunt you or whatever dumb shit superstitious people think happens.
Though I do think it is a bit wasteful to just dump salt out on the ground.
I’m originally from the southeastern U.S., so…yeah…grew up pretty ignorant. Full-stop. We weren’t superstitious (unless you count faaar-right religious fundamentalism, young-earth creationism, Jack T. Chick, grown men sprinting laps and hollerin’ “in the spirit,” occasionally maybe waving a gun on stage as a sermon illustration, etc…).
Anyway, from my perspective, the greeting/joke was over. We got in the car. Now I find myself with a little bowl of salt in the car. Can’t exactly put it in the cupholder. It was like a tablespoon or two I poured from the container in my kitchen. It was salt. It came from somewhere down there in the earth, it’s not hurting anything. I dumped it. It didn’t even occur to me that someone could be offended. I would never do it, because why would I, but it’s like if I opened a little paper salt packet from McDonald’s a little too forcefully and it spilled and someone was like, “YOU FUCKING MOTHERFUCKER, HOW DARE YOU, DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE UNLEASHED.”
As an aside, once we were romantically involved a little while later, being the romantic that I sometimes ashamedly am, I one day picked some flowers for her on my very nature-y walk home from work. Tiger lillies. The next day, I came home and the whole house smelled like lillies, the windows were open, it was like a movie scene. Then she came up to me bleary-eyed and swollen-faced and sadly explained that lillies happened to be THE thing she was most-allergic to.
One of these days, I’ll figure out what went wrong in that relationship.
When my ex first arrived in the U.S. (at the time as my au pair, long story), I greeted her with bread and salt, which is a Ukrainian/Slavic custom when welcoming guests. Just a little joke/nice gesture. I had the salt in a little ramekin. When we got in the car, I opened the driver’s side door, and just dumped it all on the ground. Well, she was very superstitious (black cats, broken mirrors, all the classics) and apparently, spilling salt is considered a bad omen. So I assume knowingly dumping it on the ground isn’t great. Then she screamed, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” and I think said some things in Ukrainian, etc… I froze, apologized, and learned something new.
May I intrude to ask the long story?
I just realized maybe you meant the relationship bit. I was in my mid-late 20s at the time. Was very religious, had gotten married very young, we moved to D.C. and I took a big-shot Capitol Hill job. Found out wife was cheating and found myself holding 99.99999% of the bag with two kids. While making ~$35k - $40k and working on fucking Capitol Hill/living in D.C.
Thankfully, the religiosity paid off at that point, as a coworker put out word at the church I attended and a very generous couple (mostly the woman) provided me with months of free full-time, in-home child-care. Really incredible and kind, even though I see them as pretty wacky, probably kinda hateful folks these days. Anyway, that bought me enough time to scramble to look at all my options. I didn’t really have any good ones. But I realized if I could scrape enough together for an au pair, it might be barely sustainable. I went through the process and interviewed various au pairs. Settled on a 23 or 24-year-old schoolteacher with a Master’s degree in Philology from Ukraine. An absurdly perfect choice to nanny my kids. As I think about it/type about it, it’s just all so absurd, but yeah.
We exchanged e-mails, did Skype calls. Looking back, they were already way too friendly.
Then we hit a snag. After meticulous preparation, filling out/printing/reviewing every document, she traveled the 2-3 hours to Kyiv and met with the immigration official at the American consulate. Denied. Oh shit. I mean, really, oh shit. I’m on borrowed time now, and suddenly we’re just told straight up, “No. Denied.”
I believe we may have appealed once before I ultimately spoke about it with the member of the House of Representatives for whom I worked and by whom I was admittedly rather beloved, for better or worse. One problem being that the more you appeal/are denied, the less likely you are to get approved in the future. So it was all crumbling.
As an aside, my chosen pet issue at the time was Ukraine (this was maybe ~2014 or 2015?). After some research and e-mails and calls on my part, I eventually arranged/my boss agreed to a call with the ambassador to Ukraine to present my case. I used every power at my disposal (for better or worse) and I guess that worked, because she made it through on her next appeal.
Having gone through that trial together. Her being in her mid-20’s. Me being her “host dad” in my late-20’s and literally actively divorcing while raising my kids. She’s stepping in to help, but in America for the first time. I mean, come on. What a joke. BUT I WAS A SAINT. I WAS A FUCKING SAINT. It was a few weeks(?) before anything actually happened and SHE FUCKING STARTED IT. But also it was never entirely conventional, looking back, as I’m pretty sure we finished a bottle of wine and slow-danced her first night there? The timeline is a little fuzzy.
It’s a rollercoaster of a story that sounds potentially gross, potentially made-up, I don’t know. It’s weird to type it out. But that’s the gist of it.
Sure, I actually posted it in response to another comment below:
I’m not at all superstitious, but so quick to attach sentimental value to things that I would instinctively know that this salt can never be thrown away or used in cooking for the rest of my life. I’d have to get an ornate urn for that salt, and it would become a thing I’d have to lift each time I’m dusting the shelves. Fucking salt.
But you can ward off the bad luck by picking up the salt and throwing it over your shoulder
TIL spilling salt isn’t considered bad luck in the US. As you can see in the wiki you linked it’s a European (not just Eastern European) superstition, along with being a bad omen in many religions in the world.
I’m from Canada and it’s considered bad luck here, though generally not taken all that seriously.
Can I ask what part of the US are that you’ve never heard of spilling salt to be bad luck? Also why would you just dump it on the ground?
I’ve lived in Canada for at least twice my own natural lifespan and I’ve never heard of spilling salt being bad luck - I do it all the time on my driveway! What part of Canada holds this superb stition?
I’ve heard of spilling salt as being a bad thing, but tbh I don’t think anyone where I live believes in them.
except for my grandma who would SWEAR by putting lima beans in her pocket on new years day and got upset if we didn’t, or tossed them at eachother as kids do
I heard you just throw it over your shoulder if you do
I’ve had a Jewish friend in the US tell me that. Although I honestly have no idea if it’s linked to Jessie’s culture or not.
I’m convinced the superstition is a misunderstanding over time of things that were, on their own, bad luck. Salt used to be expensive, so spilling some was bad luck because you would have rather kept it all for use instead of wasting it.
Mirrors would have also been expensive, especially when they needed to be transported before the time of smooth suspensions. The whole 7 years thing could be from it taking around 7 years for one particular broken mirror to be replaced.
Or the ones that invite accidents, like walking under a ladder (which usually implies someone is working at the top and might drop something, so odds of death are a bit higher under ladders). Or opening an umbrella indoors, where things are more crowded and you might injure someone or break something.
Though the black cat one is probably just racism.
Anyways, I bet that’s where they started and then humans being kinda (or very, depending on the circumstances) stupid and liking jumping on bandwagons they don’t always understand to fit in, left us with some people thinking those things cause ghosts to haunt you or whatever dumb shit superstitious people think happens.
Though I do think it is a bit wasteful to just dump salt out on the ground.
I’m originally from the southeastern U.S., so…yeah…grew up pretty ignorant. Full-stop. We weren’t superstitious (unless you count faaar-right religious fundamentalism, young-earth creationism, Jack T. Chick, grown men sprinting laps and hollerin’ “in the spirit,” occasionally maybe waving a gun on stage as a sermon illustration, etc…).
Anyway, from my perspective, the greeting/joke was over. We got in the car. Now I find myself with a little bowl of salt in the car. Can’t exactly put it in the cupholder. It was like a tablespoon or two I poured from the container in my kitchen. It was salt. It came from somewhere down there in the earth, it’s not hurting anything. I dumped it. It didn’t even occur to me that someone could be offended. I would never do it, because why would I, but it’s like if I opened a little paper salt packet from McDonald’s a little too forcefully and it spilled and someone was like, “YOU FUCKING MOTHERFUCKER, HOW DARE YOU, DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE UNLEASHED.”
As an aside, once we were romantically involved a little while later, being the romantic that I sometimes ashamedly am, I one day picked some flowers for her on my very nature-y walk home from work. Tiger lillies. The next day, I came home and the whole house smelled like lillies, the windows were open, it was like a movie scene. Then she came up to me bleary-eyed and swollen-faced and sadly explained that lillies happened to be THE thing she was most-allergic to.
One of these days, I’ll figure out what went wrong in that relationship.