What Is Friggatriskaidekaphobia?

MIAMI (CBS4) - To me, superstitions are just mumbo jumbo.  And most Americans are far less superstitious than they were in the past.

But, it is Friday the 13th, and a Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in North Carolina says seventeen to twenty-one million of us have a diagnosable phobia of Friday the 13th.

That sounds goofy to me, but there's even a name for it: friggatriskaidekaphobia.

Frigga comes from the Norse Goddess for whom Fridays are named and triskaidekaphobia for irrational fear of all things thirteen.

Even some of America's titans had it.  Henry Ford is said to have refused to do business and Franklin Roosevelt wouldn't travel on Friday the 13th.

Incredibly, by some estimates, the U.S. economy  loses up to nine hundred million dollars on every Friday the 13th, because some people won't do business deals or even go to work.

One positive: fearing an increase in accidents, friggatriskaidekaphobics don't hit the road, so there's less traffic.

But, with my luck, I'll get a huge traffic jam on the way home.   It is Friday the 13th after all.