If this post is the first thing you’re reading today, and you haven’t yet said anything out loud, you’re in luck. Let this be a reminder that your first words on this first day of the month of October should be:

“Rabbit Rabbit!” 

There you go. You’ve just guaranteed yourself a whole month of good luck.

Or that’s the superstition, at least: Begin the first day of the month by intoning long-haired furry rodents and good fortune will follow. No one knows the roots of the superstition exactly. Various sources from Wikipedia to NPR to New England Today trace it to as far back as 1909 or even centuries earlier, with the practice likely originating in England before migrating to the States.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was reputedly one of its proponents, and he did pretty well for himself. Someone ought to tell the current occupant of the White House to make it his first tweet of the day, but it’s probably too late for that.