Psychic Cold-Calls
02-Oct-06
You know how it always seems stupid that the Psychic Friends Network wants you to call them? Right? If you’re in so much trouble, don’t they know to call you first? [UFies who read the board today will know where this tangent comes from.]
On Friday, I had a psychic moment. As in, a moment with a “psychic” services person. She came up to me and my friend Inga and said “Ladies, let me give you my card– have you ever had a reading? I do readings– Tarot, palms, etc., and you both should come get a reading.” She then looked directly at me and said “YOU need a reading. You’re going through a lot of big changes!”
To which I callously replied “No, I don’t” as I smiled warmly at her and went on my way.
But how did she know?!?!? I had just lost my job, and recently submitted a book to an agent for possible publication– how did she know all that?
Well, my friends, first of all she turned around exactly .25 seconds after I had said, rather loudly (drunk on Coldstone Creamery ice cream goodness) “It’s not like I have anyone waiting for me at HOME! Just me and the cat!” So right away, she knew that she was looking at two “plus-sized” ladies who shamelessly eat ice cream in the middle of the afternoon on a workday and live alone. How could she not want to tell us to come see a psychic? We’re her target demographic!
If she had been listening for more than a second, she might also have learned that I had been considering going on a trip this weekend, and I had just said to Inga “I’m not gonna go.” Upcoming travel possibilities!
And then there’s the fact that if you throw a rock, you will hit someone who, if they aren’t actually encountering change, they think that something in their lives is about to change. Either they hope it will, or they fear it will (or sometimes both).
Change is a part of life. You don’t need a psychic, a feng shui master, a tarot reader, or any random crystal-head on the street to tell you that. For that matter, there’s very little a psychic can tell you that you don’t already know, nor do they tell you anything that you haven’t already told them, deliberately or otherwise. A psychic doing more than a 2-second reading on me would quickly tell from my face (no makeup) and wedding ring sitting next to claddagh ring that I am happily married. They can tell I’m overweight– no special powers needed there, and therefore they already know that I probably want something to change, like my weight.
There are four things that people care enough to talk to a psychic about: money, love, health, and job. Since she can tell that I have love, and in my professional clothes on Friday she knows I have money, so she would have to go with health or job. Either of these is a win– if she says my job is changing, she’s right. Anyone who is at an ice cream parlor at 2 PM on a Friday afternoon has issues with her job. Similarly (and the same criteria) for health.
She could have said “You need to make positive health changes, to prevent an illness in the near future.” Um, ya think? Middle-aged fat woman needs to avoid an illness? You don’t need to be psychic to get that.
She could have said “You’re unhappy with your job situation– you need something that really taps into your creativity.” Again a no-brainer. Everyone wants to tap into their creativity more, and again, nobody who is off work on a Friday afternoon is particularly loving their job.
Bottom line: If you want to know if a psychic is “real,” then you have to find someone who tells you something you didn’t know and couldn’t have figured out on your own. If she’d said “When you get home tonight, you’re going to cook ground beef with Hungarian peppers– be careful, because the heat from those peppers will be with you for two extra days and will make your hands hurt unexpectedly,” then I would believe her today, but only if she couldn’t have overheard Inga and me discussing my dinner plans, and only if I didn’t have a CSA bumper sticker (which I don’t).
Of course, if you believe in psychics, and find comfort and solace in talking to them, then more power to ya. I don’t believe in god, either, but cannot deny the fact that many people seek and find comfort in religion anyway.
