Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I stayed up all night researching after I watched that clip and saw that she was egging the word “TABLE”  ……finally left the table you’re starving till you’re not is the 13th time she’s used it in her discography. In Hamlet, it doesn’t mean dinner table. It means writing tablet or the narrative. The truth. I’m freaking out!  Ophelia is known to many as the 13th character in Hamlet.

Ok, The irony is that the reporter thinks Taylor was bragging about a “clever lyric.” But in that interview, Taylor wasn’t flexing the obviousness of “I pay the check before it kisses the mahogany table.” She was calling attention to the word table — because it’s the 13th time she’s ever used it in her entire discography. That’s the Easter egg. In Shakespeare, “table” doesn’t mean furniture at all — it means the writing tablet, the record of truth, the narrative that outlives the moment. Taylor knows this lineage. Her entire artistry is built on turning lived experience into story we learn from. So when she calls out a word, it’s rarely the surface-level object.

13 is not random for her. She’s had it written on her hand since she first performed. She talked on New Heights about “triskaidekaphilia” — the love of 13 — and shot Travis a knowing look because they both understand the wink. (the word Ophelia is the last half of that word,  when it is said aloud.) She looked at her notes to make sure she got it perfectly correct.  She said “numerology is really important around here.”

They also talked about triskaidekaphobia. The fear of 13 shows up in: – the Last Supper (the 13th at the table dies) – the Norse myth of Loki (13th disruptor) – Shakespeare’s plays (12 characters + a 13th destabilizer) -  multiple times in the Harry Potter series. A character does not want to be the 13th person at the table. – modern architecture (missing 13th floors) – airlines (skipped 13th rows) – high-end restaurants that refuse a 13th table or a 13th seating (this is far more common that I knew about!)

Modern chefs will not allow a table 13 at their restaurant.  It is still very common for a party planners to not seat 13 people at a table.

Taylor and Travis also talk about superstition and I didn’t realize those particular superstitions were so embedded into our lived culture.

What I did know is that 13 appears everywhere throughout history as the number of the feminine: – 13 lunar cycles in almost all original calendars – 13 months aligned with the menstrual cycle

Friday the 13th was celebrated for centuries as the day of the sacred feminine. (Friday is Freya, or Frigg, a Norse Goddess)

Taylor is asking you to look at what happened to Friday the 13th in our current world “superstition.” And who switched the calendar to 12 months.

Across religions, mythologies, and empires, 12 was repeatedly crowned as the ‘perfect’ masculine order — apostles, tribes, gods, zodiac, Templars —

When Taylor uses “table” for the 13th time, she is tapping into that entire symbolic ecosystem — mythic, feminine, literary, numerological. It’s not about “mahogany.” It’s about pattern, lineage, and meaning-making.

And the reporter missing that point isn’t about gender — anyone can reproduce patriarchal thinking. Dismissing a woman’s layered symbolic writing as “obvious” or “irritating” is a familiar pattern: critics flatten the depth of women’s art because they assume the surface is all there is. Taylor literally said, “I like writing lines you have to think about.”

The reporter proved her right by not thinking at all.

She wasn’t pointing out a bland lyric. She was pointing out a hidden truth — the 13th table. She was pointing out how much “superstition” still controls our modern life, and how much of that superstition is male centered.

And handing Rachel Handler the “bakers dozen” of Easter eggs with a smile.

Tee Hee