Place your bets! Tie the knot! Make a wish! Today is the 11th day of the 11th month of 2011. Across the country, many people are planning to mark the triple convergence of 11s with a splash, hoping it will bring them good fortune or at least amuse them for a day.
Marjaneh Peyrovan, who just moved to New York, plans to buy 11 lottery tickets (each, of course, including the number 11). She will check out apartments she has been eyeing. And precisely at 11:11 a.m., she will walk into the office of Diane von Furstenberg, the fashion designer for whom she has long dreamed of working.
“People say on 11/11 things happen, things will come true,” she said. “You never know.”
In Atlantic City, N.J., some restaurants are advertising $11.11 meals, and the Trump Taj Mahal plans drawings every 11 minutes for up to $1,111. The Riverwind Casino in Norman, Okla., prepared for an onslaught of gamblers eager to roll the dice or double down in blackjack.
“Gamblers are a superstitious bunch,” said Jack Parkinson, the casino’s general manager.
In Las Vegas, Clark County Clerk Diana Alba got ready for an onslaught of weddings, with about 3,200 applications already filled out, more than three times the normal number. She is expecting the number of couples to surpass the crowd on 8/ 8/08 and equal the throng on 1 0/10/10. It might not, however, reach the turnout seen July 7, 2007 — three lucky sevens.
“That was like the granddaddy of all dates,” Alba said.
Of course, many planned to put the quirkiness of the date aside to observe Veterans Day, which grew out of the World War I armistice that took effect at 11 a.m. Nov. 11, 1918.
The Associated Press
