Mondays, bum days and any day with a six in it ...

You know when you have 'one of those days'? You know 'those days'; the ones where you get up late and smack your knee on the bedside table. Then you hobble to the toilet and halfway through find there's no loo roll. Then you get your toe caught in the plughole as you shower, put your knickers on inside out and make coffee and cereal before discovering that the milk is off. And that's before you even leave the house!

I hate 'those days'. You just know, once a day has started like that, it's not going to improve any. You'll be stuck in traffic when your petrol light comes on, or your train/bus will be delayed or not turn up, work will be a nightmare and you'll get home only to realise that the shopping you did for your dinner is still in the fridge at the office. Super.

But do you ever find yourself thinking that it's all down to something? 'Oh, it was bound to be a bad day today - it's Monday/Friday the 13th/the day my budgie died when I was 7.' We don't really like to believe that bad days just happen, so we try to pin it on a specific cause. That way, we may dread those particular days, but at least we don't have to dread every single day of our lives because it might be 'one of those days'.

With me, it's sixes. Any day with a six somewhere in it is a potential nightmare day. In fairness, any time I've had a prang in the car, it's been in June (the sixth month), or there's been a six in the date somewhere else. And I've had a couple of uncomfortable meetings with the boss on the sixth/sixteenth/twenty-sixth of the month. But there really isn't a logical explanation for it - I once lived in a house with the number six, and it proved to be pretty unlucky, but that is about it. However, I'm now obsessed. I'll wash an extra piece of cutlery to avoid having six of anything in the washing-up rack, I avoid petrol pump/shop queue number six, even if it means waiting longer. And I try to make every bad day add up to six to justify it. The other day, I had a row with my girlfriend. We're rubbish at arguing and we soon patched it up, but it was the 18th, and - in my head - I'm thinking 18/02/10 - 18-(2+10)=6. See, stands to reason - we were bound to have problems!

But, of course, it doesn't stand to reason, does it? A little mess of a sum to make there be a six somewhere in there. And why should it matter anyway? It's all just random luck, at the end of the day - a bum day is just a bum day.

But is it a day with a six in it?