A few weeks ago, the daughter of a good friend of mine visited an area psychic and said she was very impressed with the reading she received.
It made me think back to the late 1990s and early 2000s when it seemed as if every other TV commercial was advertising some psychic hotline or another for people to call and learn (for a mere $3.99 per minute) what the future held for them.
Then suddenly, at the height of their popularity, the majority of the hotlines seemed to vanish.
Back then, I remember being really curious about psychics but I was too cheap to spend any money for a reading. So just for the heck of it, one night I Googled “free psychic readings.” Up popped more than 25,000 pages (25,801, to be exact) of supposedly “authentic” psychics, with 12 listed on each page.
All I can say is if there really were that many psychic people running around in the world during that era, nobody’s private thoughts were safe.
A large number of the psychics were offering free introductory online readings to lure people into hopefully getting hooked and craving more, which they then would have to pay for, of course. Nevertheless, my curiosity lured me into exploring a few of them.
The first psychic I checked out was called Zelda. Her web page said: “Zelda knows all and sees all, therefore, you do not even have to type your question below, though she prefers it if you do. Please ask questions that can be answered with yes or no.”
The next line puzzled me: “Your free advice is randomly chosen…according to reputable scientists.”
I envisioned a bunch of Einstein-looking guys sitting around a table and pulling random answers out of a hat to help out Zelda.
Shrugging, I typed a question: “Will I be successful and make a lot of money this year?”
Zelda responded with, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
I then asked, “Will I also enjoy good health?”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” came the answer once again.
So just to test her, I asked her a trick question: “Will a tidal wave hit my house and wash it out to sea?” (I live on top of a big hill nowhere near the ocean).
“You can bet your last dollar on it!” Zelda answered.
Zelda, I decided, was nothing more than an electronic version of the Magic-8 Ball.
Just as I was about to exit her site and try another one, something else popped up on the screen. “Zelda has another prediction for you,” it said. “You will feel and look much younger once you have taken HGH, the human growth hormone, for several months. Click here to order.”
Apparently Zelda wasn’t making good enough money as a psychic.
I visited another website that offered a free tarot-card reading. The site spread out some cards face down on the screen and instructed me to select three: one for my past, one for the present, and one for my future.
I chose three cards, as instructed, and they flipped over. One of them, a creepy-looking devil with gigantic horns, made me suspect my reading might not end up being entirely rosy.
The reading for my past began with, “You have proven by your past actions that you are the type of person who is extremely restless and doesn’t like to stay in one place or with one person for very long.”
I laughed. At the time, my husband and I had been living at the same address for nearly 30 years.
The reading for the present described me as an ill-tempered, physically strong person who wouldn’t think twice about challenging someone to a fistfight. It made me sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator.
Again, I, one of the world’s biggest wimps, had to laugh.
My future, however, turned out to be no laughing matter.
“You will have an unexpected turn of bad luck,” it said. “You are doomed to suffer a period of misfortune and failure. Outside influences will make things even worse and more difficult for you.”
“I’ll bet it was that creepy devil card,” I muttered. “Heck, if my future’s going to be that bleak, maybe I should just give up right now and go jump off a bridge or something.”
At that moment, Zelda popped up again. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Still unclear about my future, I found another tarot-card reader. This one asked me to select six cards. When I saw another devil card amongst the six I'd chosen, I figured my fate was sealed…my future was going to be nothing short of a disaster.
But to my surprise, the reading was all positive: “This will be a year of great happiness and success,” it said. “Whatever you set your mind to accomplish, you will succeed beyond your wildest dreams. Good things come to good people, and your time has arrived! Enjoy it!”
I actually was beginning to feel optimistic until the psychic added, “I also see a baby in your future! In fact, you may already be pregnant!”
I laughed so hard, I suffered a hot flash.
Now that I think about it, I just might be able to figure out why all of those “authentic” psychics suddenly disappeared...if I were them, I think I might have gone into hiding, too.
