Confronting the Future

Confession: I once visited a psychic. It  was something I had always wanted to do, and yet been totally scared and dubious. It’s like magic: I know I’m being tricked, I don’t know how, and I just dislike the condescension of it all.

Anyway, my sister-in-law invited me and I was so flattered she asked me out with her friends, I agreed without hesitation.

Her friends had gone before, and had pronounced this mystical woman “eerily accurate.” There was a foundation of belief and seriousness beyond the sort of giggling “I hope she tells me I’ll get skinny soon” sort of talk.

The psychic offered two options: you could go up with a friend and have that friend record everything for you, or you could go up alone.

I chose alone.

Of course I was terrified that she would say something horrible and I might cry or freak out.
First of all, the woman was like the picture-perfect stereotypical psychic. Right out of central casting with her long black hair, pale (even for Minnesota) pallor, and huge brown eyes that rarely blinked. She hovered near our table, pretending to recognize one of the girls. I snorted derisively. So that’s what she does! She hovers over tables, gets the scoop.

It’s my turn to go up and I start to get the stomach flips. Please don’t tell me something bad, I just say over and over.

She starts simply, gives me a lot of mumbo jumbo about my work life taking a drastic change and me getting more power. But there are jealous people out there who want to take my power, and one of them will sell me out.

Um, that’s a Monday in corporate America, right?

Then things get weirder. She turns over a card with the bars of justice. She shakes her head and shrugs a little, says “you’ll be in court, but not for something you did. You’re innocent? No, wait, you’re there in some other capacity. You’re not a lawyer, are you?”

Nope.

But I was scheduled for jury duty for the following week. Which is a post in and of itself.

Then, guys, it got downright freaking weird. She says “you’ve been offered a truck by a father…wait, no, it’s not your father, but a father figure. You don’t want to take the offer.” I kind of look at her and shake my head involuntarily. She says “good, you shouldn’t. It would be a bad decision to take the truck.”

You guys, not a week earlier, Scott’s dad had offered to trade trucks with Scott because his dad’s had a backseat capable of holding a carseat and I was a few months pregnant. I had told nobody because I was uncomfortable with the offer. His truck was worth considerably more than Scott’s. We were both working, had made a very conscious ridiculously planned decision to have a baby, and the charity felt somehow wrong.

I repeat: nobody knew of this offer except Scott and I and his dad. I hadn’t even told Scott’s sister!

So I get kind of quiet and sit down with the girls and of course they’re all fishing for the details. I gave them some highlights: oh she said I’d have a boy born on a Wednesday (or a girl born on a Thursday, can’t get ‘em all right), the baby would have lots of hair (so right on), and while I would gain a ton of weight during the pregnancy (not really), I would lose 60 pounds afterward and be in my best shape ever (the latter part, maybe, but so not up to even close to the 60 pound mark).

I told my sister-in-law as an aside about the truck. She confirmed she had no idea that offer had been on the table. Like me, she thought it was especially peculiar that the psychic had said “truck” and not “car” or “vehicle” or something more generic.

The other girls were smart and went up with friends to record everything.

One girl was traumatized because the psychic was also a healing dietician or some such and spent a bulk of the 15 minute session discussing how her food aura was disgusting or something. Basically: calling this poor chick a fattie and taking her $50.

The other girl was told her marriage was a sham and someone was cheating. She told my sister-in-law she’d be getting a new vehicle and she’d just purchased a new car that week. She told the last girl she’d be pregnant in a year, and that girl is now due in June.

I don’t know what to make of the whole psychic thing.

A friend of mine wants to go and I’m not going to lie, I’m intrigued to do it again. And have someone up there with me remembering all she says. But then the way she was accurate on some things creeps me out enough to feel like if she had really seen something bad coming, I’d be forever on guard for the bad voodoo to rear its ugly head and deliver me a cheating husband or sham marriage. And then do those things become self-fulfilling prophecies?

So what about you? Have you seen a psychic? Do you believe in horoscopes and the like, or just look at them as fun? Have you ever taken psychic advice or astrology advice to heart?