Never cut nails or hair on Sundays or at night to avoid bad luck

Setting: A cozy apartment in Berlin on a Sunday evening. Two friends, Anika (the superstitious one) and Jonas (the rational thinker), are sipping tea and chatting after dinner.

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Anika:
(gasps)
Jonas! What are you doing?

Jonas:
(holding nail clippers)
Uh… trimming my nails?

Anika:
On a Sunday?! And at night?! Do you want to invite bad luck into your life?

Jonas:
(laughs)
Anika, it’s 2025. The only thing I’m inviting is good hygiene. What’s next? No whistling indoors or you’ll summon demons?

Anika:
Don’t mock me! My grandmother always warned me: never cut your nails or hair on Sundays or after sunset. It’s bad karma. People get sick, plans fail, things break.

Jonas:
Come on, do you really believe a nail trim is powerful enough to crash the economy or make you fail a job interview?

Anika:
I’m just saying, every time I ignored it, something weird happened. Last year, I cut my nails on a Sunday night, and the next day my bike chain snapped and I spilled coffee on my boss.

Jonas:
Coincidence! You could’ve just as easily blamed it on Mercury retrograde.

Anika:
No, Jonas, I’m serious. These traditions exist for a reason. Even ancient people observed them. Maybe they knew something we don’t.

Jonas:
Or maybe they didn’t have LED lamps and good scissors. Think about it—back in the day, cutting nails or hair at night meant using dim candlelight. Higher risk of cutting yourself, infections, and possibly losing a toe if you sneezed while holding scissors.

Anika:
(laughs)
Okay, losing a toe might be a stretch.

Jonas:
Point is, it was practical advice wrapped in a superstition. Like “don’t go near water after eating”—meant to prevent drowning, not anger Poseidon.

Anika:
But some people still get bad luck from ignoring these things. My cousin Vani got a haircut at 9 PM last year, and her engagement was called off two weeks later.

Jonas:
I don’t think her fiancé left her because she got bangs after dark.

Anika:
(smirking)
He did say she was acting strange.

Jonas:
Okay, so maybe her haircut was the bad decision, not the timing.

Anika:
Touché. But still—what harm is there in following the tradition if it gives me peace of mind?

Jonas:
Honestly, none—if it helps you feel grounded, that’s totally fine. But just don’t let it limit your life. If your nail breaks on a Sunday, you shouldn’t spend the whole day haunted by nail ghosts.

Anika:
(laughs)
Nail ghosts! That’s a terrifying concept. Little clipped nails floating through my apartment whispering “we told you not to…”

Jonas:
Exactly! And look, maybe we meet halfway. You can still follow your traditions, but every now and then, question them a bit. Not every tradition is sacred just because it’s old.

Anika:
Hmm. Like grandma’s old recipe that includes raisins in lasagna. Sacred or just suspicious?

Jonas:
(grinning)
Precisely my point. Raisins in lasagna are the real bad luck.

Anika:
Alright, alright. Maybe I’ll let you trim my split ends on a Sunday. But if something weird happens tomorrow, I’m blaming you.

Jonas:
Deal. But if nothing happens, you owe me a lasagna—no raisins.

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[They both laugh, sipping their tea as the clock ticks past 10 PM, and Jonas continues trimming his nails, superstition-free.]