Setting: A sunny afternoon at a café in São Paulo. Marcos, sipping his café com leite, sits across from his longtime friend Rafael, who’s nervously glancing at the street after a black cat just passed by.
Marcos: (smirking) Let me guess… you’re about to knock on wood again?
Rafael: (instantly taps the wooden table) Pá-pá-pá! Of course! A black cat just crossed the road. You can’t be too careful.
Marcos: Man, we’re in 2025. You seriously believe a cat controls your fate?
Rafael: Not the cat itself, no. But the universe has… signs. Energy. Things we shouldn’t mess with. You knock on wood to push the bad juju away.
Marcos: “Bad juju?” Rafa, you sound like my grandma. Next, you’ll tell me Mercury is in retrograde and that’s why your Wi-Fi stopped working.
Rafael: (grinning) That did happen last month! I knocked on my desk right before my job interview and boom — I got hired. Coincidence? I think not.
Marcos: No offense, but you also submitted your résumé to, like, 40 companies and prepped for two weeks. Maybe that’s why you got hired, not the desk knocking.
Rafael: But what if I hadn’t knocked? What if something went wrong?
Marcos: That’s classic confirmation bias, my friend. You remember the times things worked out after knocking, and you forget the times it made zero difference. Like last year—remember when you knocked on every tree in Ibirapuera Park before asking Luana out?
Rafael: Yeah, and she said yes! For three whole days.
Marcos: Exactly. And then she ghosted you. Did you knock again after the third date?
Rafael: (sighs) No… I got cocky. Rookie mistake.
Marcos: (laughing) See? You’re blaming lack of knocking now. That’s not cause and effect, Rafa. It’s just how life works — random, chaotic, messy. No magic table tap’s gonna change that.
Rafael: You sound like one of those TED Talk guys. “Logic! Rationality! Blah blah blah!” Can’t a guy just have a little ritual? It makes me feel in control.
Marcos: That’s fair. Humans do like patterns and habits. Even scientists have rituals — like wearing lucky socks before launching rockets.
Rafael: Aha! So even Mr. Rationality agrees rituals help!
Marcos: No no, not help in a magical way. They help focus your mind. Calm nerves. Like a placebo. They don’t affect the outcome, just your confidence.
Rafael: But if my confidence goes up and I perform better, doesn’t that make the knocking work in some way?
Marcos: (nods slowly) Okay, I’ll give you that. Psychologically, sure, it has an effect. But we should stop short of saying wood has cosmic powers.
Rafael: (shrugs) Maybe the universe is just more mysterious than you scientists admit. My vózinha used to say, “Better to knock and be safe than to scoff and be sorry.”
Marcos: Your vózinha also believed that drinking water during a solar eclipse made your stomach explode.
Rafael: Still not gonna risk it!
Marcos: (laughs) Fine, knock all you want. Just don’t drag me into it when you start waving garlic at my laptop because it crashed.
Rafael: (laughing) No promises.
[Pause – A waiter drops a tray behind them, startling everyone.]
Rafael: (immediately knocks on wood) That could’ve been us! You see?
Marcos: (deadpan) Or maybe he just forgot to tighten his grip.
Rafael: You can explain it however you want. I’ll just keep knocking. Besides, it’s good arm exercise.
Marcos: (raising his coffee) To ancient habits and modern minds.
Rafael: And to never underestimating the power of a good knock.
[They clink mugs, shaking their heads at each other, both firm in their ways — but laughing all the same.]
Science Vs Superstition 
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