My friend Ed Green is a pretty smart guy. I am sure his IQ is well into double digits. But when his wife Millie recently went to Florida to visit her parents, they had to have a meeting to discuss Ed’s new responsibilities. At that meeting, Ed took copious notes. He decided that he had to write down every little thing he was to do for the 10 days Millie would be away.

“There I was with my calendar and a pencil,” he told me, “documenting every little detail of my life for the upcoming week and a half.” He then showed me his calendar. Don’t ask me why, but on every single page he felt the need to write “7:00 a.m.—feed dog.” I also don’t think it was necessary for him to write “7:25—take Norm to the bus” on every weekday page.

It’s not as though Ed has never taken Norm to the bus in the morning or fed the dog. The problems are that these things are not part of his daily routine and he doesn’t have a lot of confidence in his short-term memory. Hence, he feels better having written everything down where he can see it in black and white.

He is definitely a creature of routine. His alarm rings at 5:50 every morning. He hits the seven-minute snooze button four or five times, then he starts his day. Every day starts with exercise, a shower, breakfast and a drive to his office. He considers any change a monkey wrench in the works.

If you listen to him talk about it, Millie’s trip is the biggest calamity of all time. “Now, if I’m going to take Norm to the bus and also exercise, I can’t hit the snooze button four times.” What a tragedy! He really ought to learn to be a little more flexible, don’t you think?

Of course, he is not the only person to be ruled by habits and rituals. Have you ever watched some of these baseball players closely? When they come up to bat, they go through a series of actions that won’t vary from at bat to at bat even one iota. It will always be something like: adjust the batting helmet, adjust the batting glove, spit, a turn of the head and a cough.

Tennis and racquetball players might bounce the ball exactly three times before serving. A football player may eat precisely 5.2 pounds of meat before the game. Some competitors cross themselves before competing. It’s a good thing Jewish athletes don’t try to trace the Star of David. By the time they finish, the pitcher could have thrown three strikes past them.

The reason for routines like these is the belief that each action is part of a series of movements that will lead to a successful outcome. So then, why do some people insist on dressing by donning each article of clothing in a particular order? I think I understand why socks come before shoes but why must it always be left then right or pants then shirt?

I just transitioned from routines and rituals to superstitions, didn’t I? Some common superstitions make sense, at least from a reality-based standpoint. Avoiding walking under a ladder seems to be a pretty reasonable practice. The ladder or something on it could fall on you. Staying out of the path of a black cat will prevent you from stepping in something the cat left on its path. Ignoring Friday the 13th makes sense since you’ve probably seen the movie six or seven times already.

To a numbers guy like Ed Green, avoiding the number 13 is reasonable. “Thirteen is an odd number and it is also a prime number. It doesn’t possess the even, pleasing characteristics of, say, 12. If 12 was a thing, it would be a gold bar. If 13 was a thing, it would be an irregular shard of glass.” Do those men in the white coats put the strait jacket on before or after the pants?

I guess this is what is known as a stream of consciousness. In talking about the number 13, I’ve gone from superstitions to phobias. People’s fears can be interesting. Those who are agoraphobic become very anxious and exhibit physical symptoms when they are out in the open. Some individuals are afraid of heights (acrophobia), closed spaces (claustrophobia), water (hydrophobia) or flying (aerophobia). These are all fairly common phobias.

Here are some uncommon ones. I won’t tell you what they mean now. Try to figure them out for yourself. I’ll tell you if you’re right in my next column: Papaphobia. Ophthalmophobia. Ailurophobia. Odontophobia. Phagophobia. Selaphobia (No, this is not the fear of actress Sela Ward, though I may scream if I see her face on another long distance telephone service commercial.)

You may have detected my case of dearthoverbiphobia. This is the fear a columnist has that he won’t be able to string enough coherent words together to fill his space. I think I’ve discovered a cure: Keep typing. Please keep reading.