Never leave your hat on the bed

There is an old superstition that goes - it is bad luck to leave your hat on the bed.

When and where this superstition came from is lost. A good guess is that some unfortunate bloke went to work and left his hat on the bed. The rain gave him a cold and he died in bed.
The hat business has been in decline for years, unless one includes the ubiquitous baseball cap.
The decline in the Fedora, the Panama, and the Stetson have many causes. Instead of walking to work or taking the trolley, we ride in an air conditioned or heated car. The fury of Mother Nature has been, for the moment, tamed - until Mother Nature realizes mankind is messing around with climate change and She pours down her revenge.

That is something for politicians to think about.

put your hat over the bed and not on the bed

Speaking of politicians -

John F. Kennedy triggered a disastrous decline in the sales of men's hats by leaving home without his hat and appearing hat-less at his inauguration. William Henry Harrison was hat-less, coat-less, and glove-less and only 31 days after assuming office, the ninth president of the United States, died in bed of pneumonia.

There is an equally plausible explanation for the bad luck no hat superstition. A magician got up one morning and his wife laid out on the bed his tuxedo and top hat while he shaved and showered. When he dressed, he donned the tux and bow tie, put on the white gloves, but left without the hat - and the rabbit.

Bartholomew had a magical hat, in fact he had 500 hats, each one prettier than the last.

Will Rogers had a lucky hat

Will Rogers had a lucky hat. And along with a lariat and a few jokes he parlayed into a full time gig. He didn't joke about the hat, but he liked to say, "Everything is funny, as long as it's happening to somebody else,"and by everybody else, he meant politicians.


For good luck, rodeo cowboys are told they should not place a hat on a bed, eat peanuts, wear yellow, or quit roping practice on a miss. It's an odd combination, but one goes with what works. Besides, out on the range, if a cowboy tosses his hat on his bed roll, he is likely to lie down on it in the dark and flatten it like a cow-patty.

That is bad luck!