For those who fear Friday the 13th, today is not your day.

Not only is it Friday the 13th, it's the third one this year. The first one fell in February followed by another in March.

Friday the 13th has long gotten a bad rap, although exactly how and when has been up for debate. Some historians say it's the likely pairing of some old superstitions about the badness of Fridays and the number 13. The 1980 slasher flick cemented in most people's minds that nothing good can come out of that day.

Bruce McClure, a writer for the website EarthSky: Updates on Your Cosmos and World, notes the oddity of this year's Friday the 13th trilogy. "Not that we at EarthSky suffer from friggatriskaidekaphobia — an irrational fear of Friday the 13th — but, gosh darn, it's Friday the 13th three times over in 2015," he wrote.

And then he does a little math, pointing out that the 13th in November comes exactly 39 weeks — that's 13 x 3 — after the first one in February. Cue the creepy music.

EarthSky points out that the last time a year had three Friday the 13ths was in 2009 — the first time in the 21st century. And it won't happen again until 2026.

So stay in bed today if you don't want to test superstition. Or, pay it no mind and walk under a ladder while breaking a mirror as a black cat wanders by.

Mary Lynn Smith