The phone rang, and that was the first sign that I was in trouble. Phone calls at my house never bring good news. Usually, a phone call means that a company is ticked that I didn't pay a bill, or a telemarketer wants to sell me a CD collection called "Polkas of the '80s," or I have to go and bail some random relative out of jail.
Showing a complete lack of judgment, I answered the phone anyway. My friend Christina was on the other side.
"Hi, Jimmy! Ya wanna go to the Psychic Faire?"
Yikes. The news was worse than I had imagined.
After some minor cajoling and threats of bodily harm, Christina finally convinced me to join her. We met, and we headed for the Reno-Sparks Convention Center for the "Psychic and Creative Arts Faire."
Before I go on about the Psychic Faire (our motto: We like words that end unnecessarily with the letter "e"), let me now briefly touch on the status of the Convention Center. In a word, it's jacked. On the Saturday in question, there was the Psychic Faire and the Home Showe both going on at once, which was chaotic enough. However, the former convention center parking lot is in the process of becoming more convention center, and the new parking lot is small and pathetic and located across busy Peckham Lane. The end result was a teeming mass of people and cars and convention center security folk the likes of which should be outlawed.
But despite the vehicles and people and honking and general disorder, Christina and I made to the Crafts Faire, thanks to one big factor: Christina, who is a woman, was hell-bent on getting a psychic reading done. And I have learned that if a woman is hell-bent on something happening, it will probably happen, and great pain will be inflicted upon all that stands in said woman's way.
We walked in, paid our $5 admission fees (it was supposed to be $6, but we had coupons, woo hoo) and entered a room filled with -- how do I put this gently -- people who were trying to sell crap. But this was no ordinary crap -- this was crap with Special Powers.
You know the kinds of things I am talking about. Things like crystals, geodes, birthstones -- in other words, rocks. Some of these rocks were in their natural, rock-like state. Others were polished; yet others were made into jewelry. There were also beads (aka fake rocks) and trinkets made out of other materials.
One display caught my eye. It was for a toe ring. The sign accompanying the small, round, ceramic-looking thing boldly stated: MIDDLE TOE RING. HELPS WITH RELATIONSHIPS.
Really, the sign said that. I chortled, and Christina got quite defensive, saying that SHE "believes in this stuff." I shut up, because I realized I was clearly dealing with a crazy person, and I didn't want her to snap worse than she already had.
Anyway, after looking at all the stuff, Christina started prowling around for the right psychic to give her a reading. She eventually found a tarot card reader who looked friendly. The fee was $10, and after Christina chose between the angels deck and the fairies deck, the woman was flipping cards like crazy.
She took Christina through the chosen cards, and, to put it mildly, Christina was not impressed. Much of what was said didn't make sense, and some of it obviously did not apply to Christina, so the reader -- again, this really happened -- went through a second group of cards from the same deck.
Apparently, there are do-overs in the psychic world.
While the second set of cards was better at telling Christina what she wanted to hear (um, I mean at "predicting the future"), Christina's thirst for psychic life assistance was not quenched. Therefore, she decided to seek out another psychic, one who didn't use tarot cards, for $20. I was kinda on the fence about doing such a thing myself, but I was persuaded by Christina to give it a try.
I won't divulge what the psychic said to Christina, but I will say that she enjoyed her reading, and got lots of advice on her love life, which she wanted. I won't divulge what the psychic said to me, but I will say that it was so obviously wrong that Christina volunteered to buy me a nice dinner afterward.
Whatever. All I know is that I finally figured out why my last relationship failed: Neither my ex-girlfriend nor myself were wearing rings on our middle toes. Whew, what a load of my mind ...
Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who reminds you that you do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around, 'cause that's what it's all about. His column appears here Tuesdays, and he can be reached via e-mail at jiboegle@stanfordalumni.org.