Bad luck comes in threes
The saying that bad luck comes in threes gives a run of trouble a built-in ending. Families and workplaces that keep it often relax once a third mishap arrives, however small.
What it may mean
The most useful part of the rule of three may be the end of it. One family described to a student folklorist how, when something bad happens, everyone waits for two more, and once the third arrives, even a small one, they relax. The count gives worry a finish line. Without it, a bad week can feel open-ended, every phone call a possible next blow. Of course the count always works out, because people stop counting at three and can decide afterward what counts. That is no reason to sneer at it. People need endings, and a superstition that supplies one is doing honest work. It also helps to have a finish line of your own: a date, a walk, a sentence that says this stretch is over.
Depending on how you saw it
Deaths in the news
When two well-known people die within days, many readers start watching for a third, and there is almost always one to find if the window stays open long enough. Who do you talk to when the news seems to be arriving in a series?
On a hospital ward
Nurses in a Tulsa newborn nursery, one of them told her son for a folklore archive, say things happen in threes: when one baby arrives with an unusual condition, they expect two more soon. What unofficial rule does your workplace live by?
When the third thing is tiny
One student's family, a fellow student recorded, starts counting after bad news such as a car crash, and even a stubbed toe or a little lost money can complete the set. Which small mishap would you gladly count as the third, so you can stop waiting?
Why it happens in nature
Unrelated events often arrive in clusters by chance, and the mind notices clusters far more than the uneventful stretches between them. A rule of three also has no fixed time window or definition of bad luck, so almost any run of trouble can be made to fit, and once three are counted the counting stops.
What folk beliefs say
United States (Oklahoma)
A nurse born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who worked in a hospital newborn nursery for thirty years, said that in nursing they always say things happen in threes: if one baby is born with an unusual condition, they expect two more in a short time.
Source: jrayburn (collector), Things Happening in Threes (USC Digital Folklore Archive) (2016), folklore.usc.edu. View the page
United States
A student living in Los Angeles said his family believes bad news comes in threes, and after one bad event they wait for two more, counting even a stubbed toe or a small loss of money among them.
Source: garc531 (collector), Bad comes in 3's (USC Digital Folklore Archive) (2016), folklore.usc.edu. View the page
To reflect on
What could mark the end of a bad stretch for you without waiting for a third thing to go wrong?