My sister-in-law went to see a psychic recently, and when she called to report back to me how the meeting went, I had my reservations.
After all, there are psychics, and then there are psychics. The fake ones should be put in jail for lying to us about their phony abilities. The real ones should be put in jail for not telling us when an earthquake or tornado is about to hit.
Debbie knows my stance on psychics, but she still cares enough about me to give me a call and let me know what the future holds. And I still care enough about her to listen — to a point.
“He said some things about you,” she said.
“I’m breathless with anticipation,” I said, and she started to tell me. Apparently the psychic forgot to tell her that her brother-in-law can be a sarcastic pain-in-the-butt now and then.
Her voice got serious. “He said you really should get your prostate checked.”
“Wow,” I said, “this guy is good. I mean, who but a genuine psychic would suspect that a guy on the wrong side of 70 might need a prostate check?”
“But that’s not all,” she said, her sarcasm-shield set to maximum level.
“Thanks, Deb,” I said, cutting her off, “but I really don’t want to know what he had to say about me.”
“You don’t?” she said, dumbfounded. “Why not?”
“Let’s just say I like surprises.”
Sensing my skepticism, she went on to tell me what the psychic had to say about her own life, as proof that maybe I should take him more seriously. “He told me that I was going to redecorate my house, and — get this — he said it had something to do with carpets! Carpets! That’s exactly what I planned to do!”
“Go figure,” I said. “This guy found the one woman in America who isn’t totally satisfied with the carpet situation in her house! Proof positive of his bona fides, right?”
She mentioned a few other future facts that the guru-guy revealed to her, but I can’t tell you what they were because… well, I guess because I just stopped listening. Or maybe my prostate caused me ears to ring so loudly that I couldn’t hear her. Yeah, that must have been it.
But yesterday I had my eyes opened to the realization that I may have been a bit harsh on that psychic.
I was golfing with my buddy Mike, and as we finished on the fourth hole, I noted my score on that hole, which was just one over. Not so bad for me, but it would have been nice to go even on that par-5.
I blamed the groundskeeper who was standing to the side waiting for us to finish putting so he could move the flag to another part of the green. It’s always somebody else’s fault that I’m not breaking par, and for this hole it was this guy’s turn.
But when he sank his hole-digging tool into the soft turf, I felt a chill go down my spine. Because he made the new hole about 40 feet from where the flag stood — right where my chip shot had landed on my approach to the green.
And it suddenly hit me like a flash! I’m not a lousy golfer — I’m just a guy with so much psychic power that I always hit the ball not where the flag now stands on the green, but where it will stand in the near future!
You can feel them now, can’t you? The chills? Who wouldn’t feel chills after hearing a psychic story like that?
Well, Mike apparently is one of those chill-free guys, because he just laughed at me when I told him. He laughed even harder when I suggested that we should cut my score by at least 9 strokes.
“Only nine?” he said. “You should cut twice that, because most golfers would two-putt a green if their approach shot doesn’t drop right in the hole. In fact, I don’t know why you even carry a putter in your bag. Or a whole lot of those other clubs, for that matter.” But he said it with a smirk on his face, leading me to think that he might have been sarcastic. Mike can be a real pain in the prostate sometimes.
Anyway, I thought I would tell you this tale, because you read this column on a regular basis. You know me. You’re a sensible reader, and you know a real psychic when you hear one, don’t you?
And if you need further proof of my psychic abilities, get this — right now you’re shaking your head, aren’t you, saying you don’t believe in my psychic abilities?
Well… I knew you would say that!
Chills, right?
Author, musician and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.
