Pet peeve #34: ladders in the street

Confronted with a ladder across the sidewalk, you have two choices. Either you walk under it, or you walk around it. But it's not as simple as that is it? If you walk around it, you are announcing to the world "I am a superstitious sort and prefer not to talk under ladders in the street." If you walk under it, you are defiantly thumbing your nose at such nonsense. But what if you have no position on the matter and simply want to walk along the street, uninterrupted by demands to declare your position on the matter?

I'm not superstitious but have found that if I walk under the ladder, I spend the remainder of my walk wondering if there is something to it after all, and worrying that my defiance will not go unnoticed. On the other hand, walking around it, I feel stupid and superstitious. It's lose-lose. All I want to do is get from one end of the street to the other.