Running late for an appointment is a young man dressed in a sharp suit and carrying an attaché. Weaving through the foot traffic the man checks his watch to make sure he will make his important meeting. His phone rings and he retrieves it from a pocket and says hello. Distracted, he walks right under a ladder leaning on a building; realizing what he did he freezes, wondering if what his grandmother always told him is true- that walking under ladders means bad luck.
The Walking Under a Ladder Superstition
To many walking under a ladder is bad luck, while to others it is simply unsafe. Some will go so far to say that walking under a ladder is akin to blaspheme, and in the old days being a blasphemer wasn’t very conducive to good health and long life, so accidentally walking under a ladder in a Christian land could be considered very bad luck, indeed. But is there anything to the superstition, and where did the idea that it would bring bad luck come from? And was there anything that could be done to break the bad luck before it settled to deeply on the offender?