Bad (r)omens

The other night I spilled an almost-full glass jar of Celtic sea salt on the floor of my kitchen. I knew there was some superstition about this, but I couldn't remember what exactly it was, or what I was supposed to do to counteract it (throw some salt over my left shoulder to spite the devil). So it looks like now, as penalty, I'll have to wait outside the gate of Paradise for as many years as there are grains of salt. Or maybe I will just "shed as many tears as may suffice to dissolve the quantity of salt which I have spilled." Either way, that's a lot of years, or a lot of tears.

And perhaps too the spill represents the decay of a Bad Romance.

We 'el tel you the reason
Why spilling of Salt
Is esteemed such a Fault,
Because it doth ev'rything season.
Th' antiques did opine
'T was of Friendship a sign,
So served it to guests in decorum,
And thought Love decayed,
When the negligent Maid
Let the salt-cellar tumble before them.
- "British Apollo" (1708)

Well. As a man thinketh.