STOP THAT, MISS BRIGGS!

Forty-two, Schmorty-two! Scram, Magical Thinking

Today, when I realize that it was 42 years from the height of Miss Briggs' abuse of me to the instant of my realization of it, for a lighthearted moment I think I may have found the "ultimate question" that eludes the most devoted fans of The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy.

But to declare that Douglass Adams stated that 42 was the ultimate answer "to life, the universe, everything" as a cryptic message to me meant to plant the seeds of my eventual healing would be just a little self-centered, wouldn't it?

Well, that's just the kind of connection someone with Magical Thinking can make. It may go against a person's intelligence and understanding of odds to believe something told to a worldwide audience, and meant only as humor, is about them, disregarding the fact that a famous writer across the ocean isn't going to have heard of them. But if that person is afflicted with Magical Thinking they may labor under such a delusion, no matter how intelligent they are.

People with Magical Thinking can decide that events unconnected to them -- world events, sports outcomes, or whether a candy bar gets hung up in a vending machine -- transpire in ways and patterns that are all about them. Many arrangements of numbers, words, initials or dates on the calendar seem to have personal significance to a Magical Thinker – or more often they will decide that an arrangement always has meant something after it suddenly takes on great meaning, as in 911 or the name of a surprise winning horse in the Kentucky Derby.

If you're thinking of clairvoyants, yes, psychologists say the distorted perception of one's central place in the world that comes with Magical Thinking can cause many with the condition to decide after the fact they had seen giant events coming and declare themselves gifted.

I teetered on this once or twice based on a couple of number patterns -- most notably when it turned out that multiple family members' birthdays happened to be on dates of big news events going back to before I was born on into my adult years. (No, I didn't call the tabloids or decide to take to the nightclub stage as a psychic.)

Some Magical Thinkers see their passionate favorite sports teams winning or losing in the World Series or the NCAA final four as some sort of morality play reflecting on the voracity of the state or city on the front of the uniforms, therefore on them.

In this way, a much more limited form of Magical Thinking pervades all sports fans' minds. Jerry Seinfeld, noting how we make our players heroes and the opponents villains based on which jerseys they are wearing, got it right when he said, "We're rooting for laundry!"

During the height of my problem, I sometimes blended sports, history and politics to find patterns showing forces obviously at work.

Looking at every fourth World Series from 1952 through 1976, then changing my mental channel to presidential elections, I noticed that during that long span whenever the National League team wins the fall classic, the Democrat wins the presidential election the following month. Same link between an AL win and a Republicans victory.

But my pattern-hungry consciousness isn't satisfied with just nailing down the fact that who  wins the series mirrors the election. Look at how  they won.

Easy Series win, like the NL's Cardinals in 1964 means, well, LBJ all the way. Same for the Oakland As of the American League in 1972 and Nixon's 49-state landslide. And 1960? In the closest and most drawn out World Series ever, the Pirates' Bill Mazeroski homers in the bottom of the 9th in the 7th game to break a 9-9 tie with the storied Yankees and bring the Series title to Pittsburgh; weeks later it takes until after dawn Wednesday for JFK to be declared the winner of the most gruelingly close presidential race ever.