Future's Lookin' Great

On the hottest day of the year so far, I was scurrying from one air conditioned shop to the next in the shopping district near my house.  That's when I saw a woman sitting on a bench handing out fliers.  Most people were ignoring her, but I decided to say hello because I knew she was probably roasting and miserable on that hot metal bench. 

Apparently this was my lucky day.  She declared herself to be a psychic and an "Adviser on all problems."  She pressed her flier into my hands and gave me a desperate smile.  "Sit down," she said, "I see great thing in your future."

Tempting.  Doesn't everyone want to hear that they are going to succeed at everything?  Wouldn't it be nice if bangle bracelets and long, frizzy hair were the uniform of people who could actually give good advice?  I would go to a psychic all the time if the magic worked.

But this woman, the person who wanted to tell me how to live my life, was sitting out in the baking sun, handing out poorly copied fliers, and was practically begging me for money.  This was just bad marketing.

If she could tell my future, why hadn't she won the lottery about 30,000 times in her life?  Why wasn't she an adviser to the United States government, they seem to need some good advice?  Why hadn't she predicted that I wasn't going to sit down with her and pay twenty dollars to hear that I should be careful in the month of August?

So I said "good day" and walked away from my almost-mystic.  Her smile slipped.  She kind of looked angry at me.  Again, didn't she expect me to walk away?  I waved a little over my shoulder and thought, I predict a sunburn in that psychic's near future.

Comments

[ColbyMarshall]

Don't you know that it's in the psychic handbook that psychic powers can't be used for lottery numbers due to the Great Lottery Psychic Debate Conference of 1952? Nothing to do with them being frauds...absolutely nothing. It's just good psychic policy. They can only use their powers to give you vague and unhelpful seeings into the future...haha!

[Melody Platz]

Dang it! I didn't know about the GLPD Conference of 1952. See children, this is why bloggers need to do their research.

So you're telling me that I missed my chance to spend twenty dollars for a legit psychic who would give me vague advice that had a remote possibility of doing me some good. I wish I had spoken to you before I took my ignorant self away from my almost-mystic.

Next time I'll know better. Man, I'm glad we got this all cleared up.

[Lee]

I'm going to have to figure out how to work this into a doodle one day!

[Melody Platz]

Lee,

I love your doodles. I can't wait to see that!