It's funny how none of the '7 common superstitions' mentioned in the article were part of my Cuban upbringing. None of them are known to Cubans. No, it's not because Cubans are more rational than other races, we just have our own ridiculous beliefs.

When I mentioned some of these others I heard about at school or on the street to my family, they just rolled their eyes and gave me their best "these Crackers are all obviously out to lunch" looks. No, Cubans have their own nonsense.

For example. It is bad luck to whistle, or sing, at the dinner table. No, not bad manners, bad luck.

It is also bad luck to leave a hat, or an umbrella on the bed. It is also bad luck to leave scissors on the bed (not just a safety hazard, bad luck, fool!).

It is also bad luck to "cross yourself in a doorway", that is, to stand in the threshold between two rooms and support yourself by grabbing the opposing door jambs. This is some kind of crucifixion taboo, no doubt.

It is also bad luck to praise or admire someone elses baby, or child, or to even look at it too much. It has something to do with the "evil eye". Many children even wear a little piece of specialized jewelry, a charm to ward off the "mal de ojo". It is a tiny little black hand carved from the semiprecious gem 'jet', set in an expensive gold setting and chain. Evil eye countermeasures don't come cheap.

Speaking of jewelry, garish gold medallions of the Virgin of Charity, Cuba's patron saint, are often worn about the neck, even by atheists! Go figure.

Statues of elephants are popular to discourage evil from entering a house, but only if the elephant has its trunk raised. An elephant statue with the trunk hanging down has the opposite effect. I kid you not. It is also essential these elephants point their upraised trunks towards the front door to be fully effective.

My mother hid and abused the beautiful hand-carved ebony and ivory elephant ( a true work of art) my father brought back from India after the War, even used it as a door stop, because its trunk was improperly deployed. She replaced it with this grotesque set of garish porcelain elephants she scattered all over the living room so the front door would be caught in a withering crossfire of good vibes. She did all this without letting me know what she was up to, because she knew I didn't believe in any of that crap. The largest in the set (with a wheelbase of about two feet!) was simply too big to fit on any piece of furniture and still aim directly at the door, and when I pointed this out to her and mentioned it was only operating at about 70% efficiency as a result, she threw me out of the house.

Other superstitions included leaving glasses of water in lonely dark places around the house, like in the backs of closets and cupboards. I would always run into them, sometimes months later, filled with yucky mold and algae. I would take them out, scrub them totally, and put them back in the kitchen. Within a few days they would be replaced. We never talked about it, but I suspect it was some Cuban voodoo thing, the water soaking up the evil spirits or something.

Unlike our American friends, Cuban kids also had to wait TWO hours after eating before they could go swimming (they might get an "embolio"). This one was not really a superstition, since it supposedly had a scientific or medical reason. But you couldn't take a shower or get a haircut until two hours after a meal, either. I never figured that one out. And by the way, it wasn't just my family, every Cuban I ever asked about it had to take the same anti-embolism prophylactic precautions.

But my favorite was the family rule about drinking alcoholic beverages in the same meal that bananas were served in. (Beer and wine were frequently served with meals, even to the kids, which explains why alcoholism is relatively rare among Cubans, alcohol in moderation was considered an aid to digestion, not a badge of manhood). The mixture of alcohol and banana was supposedly highly poisonous. When I pointed out that the grownups often drank banana daiquiris at parties, the stunned look of realization that came across the grown-up's faces was a beautiful thing to behold. Apparently, that simple, obvious fact had never occurred to them.