Something Scarier than Friday the 13th?

Many folks have a fear of the number thirteen, a phobia known as triskaidekaphobia. Taking that one step further, those who fear the number 13, when the date happens to fall on a Friday, suffer from parskevidekatriaphobia-- that it is an irrational fear of Friday the 13^th.

Couple that, or triple it in the case of 2012, when not one or two, but actually three times we’ll see the 13^th fall on a Friday, and that has some people just about jumping out of buildings.

It is not surprise then, that a professor at Penn State has concluded studies and determined that there are more than a few folks walking among us who suffer from a very complicated combination of fears that has them not only fearing the number 13 and Friday the 13^th but also the dishonest ways of Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. The three fears combined form a perfect storm of phobias known as Mittotrickstertriskaidekaphobia.

Dr. Sven Jorgenssen of Penn State says he has been studying phobias for the past 20 years and has never come across a more insidious set of fears in one person. While rare, the doctor claims that he has found at least 327 of the 1000 subjects tested have some degree of the triple phobia.

“That says to me that almost one in three people in the United States have a fear of Mitt Romney which is compounded on Friday the 13^th,” said Jorgenssen. “The implications are far-reaching,” he added.

Dr. Jorgenssen says he was astounded at the results. It appears that a compound set of phobias, especially ones in which the subject has superstitious but irrational fears of a certain thing, in this case, Friday the 13^th, combined with a quite rational fear of something or someone, in this case Mitt Romney, may determine whether or not that person will leave his home on that day or stay cowering inside a closet until Saturday, the 14^th.

Looking back to January 13, 2012, when Mitt Romney was in South Carolina to drum up votes for the primary on January 21, Jorgenssen notes that only a handful of brave souls showed up to listen to Romney speak. He [Jorgenssen] is confident this is the reason Romney lost the primary in that state to Newt Gingrich the following week.

With primaries coming up on April 24 in five New England states, Jorgenssen predicts that on the Friday the 13^th leading up to those primaries, Mitt Romney will have an embarrassingly low turnout of voters and may suffer because of it. He further claims that, while he is still conducting the studies, Jorgenssen believes that Friday, July 13^th will bring the biggest embarrassment of Romney’s political career, when people inflicted with Mittotrickstertriskaidekaphobia reaches unprecedented levels.

“If Ron Paul can hang in there long enough,” predicts Jorgenssen, “he may just have a shot after all of winning the whole shebang.”