So anyway, Lady-in-Charge tells me to have the patrons ask a question, then have them hold the fish in their hand for their answer. Cute.

Me: “But I have cards I brought to read.”

Lady-in-Charge: “Whatever.  I gotta go.”

I’m sure she regretted that quick exit for a long time to come.

I had also brought a battery-operated candle with me, which I set up on the table in front of me.  On the other side of the table, I placed 2 chairs.  I can’t recall how many tickets or whatever you needed to ‘get your fortune told’, but I was to take the ticket(s) and, apparently, give them a fish.

To my credit, I DID give them a fish.  But it was more like, “here’s what the cards say…and by the way, have a fish!”

The first people to come up were a mother and her son.  I asked them for one question, then I pulled 3 cards and read them (the old quickie “past-present-future” thing).  Then I gave them a fish.  They seemed pleased with the reading.

As more people came along, I noticed that my accuracy rating was improving, a lot.  I could tell by the startled looks on their faces.  And also by the long, LONG line leading to the room I was in.  At least twice as long as the evil BettyLou’s, with her fancy tent and all.

In fact, I raised a SHITLOAD of money for the school, or so I was told (not in those words, exactly)…

Lady-in-Charge said to me, “You raised a lot of money for the school today, and we thank you for that.  However, please do not volunteer again, as we do not feel that an ACTUAL fortune teller is appropriate for our school’s Halloween Carnival.”

I went home and cried, after my kids went to bed.  It was then that I realized I just didn’t understand how a lot of people think.  And I wondered if, by trying to “fit in”, I wasn’t actually causing more harm to my kids than good.  Maybe I embarrassed them at school when I did stuff like this?  I’ll never know, as my kids have always been way too considerate to ever tell me, even if I had.

Years later, I have actually done therapy with a few women who, after some unforseen tragedy like their husband cheating on them while they were busy campaigning for the “designated birthday cake maker for the 5th grade” or some such nonsense, fell to pieces and ended up in my office in the psych hospital.  I have also done therapy with a few women who cracked up after being ostracized by the PTO, the local church women’s group, or some other high-minded organization.

People just do not realize what’s important in life.  They base their identities on fragile, transient things.  They attack other people in order to keep their egos intact through fragile, transient things.  And eventually they are consumed and sometimes destroyed by these fragile, transient things.  Because “things” are not enough to sustain an endurable, strong identity.

It’s a level of unawareness that’ll kill you if you don’t, as some say, wake up.

And…self-awareness will be another topic, another time.

Today’s weirdness is from Snopes, that wonderful site that tells you what’s an urban legend and what’s not.  This is not so much strange as in Fortean, but strange as in “what in hell were they thinking?”

“Fracking For A Cure”, Snopes 10/14: A company is distributing 1000 pink drill bits in order to raise awareness around breast cancer.  Drill bits, that are used in fracking.  Fracking, that thing that causes a lot of cancer-causing chemicals to leak into the environment, many chemicals that….are linked… to breast cancer.  The Susan G. Komen Foundation, who also accepted $100,000 from this company, doesn’t address this issue head on, instead they just state their appreciation for the company “for their efforts to show support for women and men facing breast cancer.”  How nice.

My recommendation for a movie is, in keeping with October, Nosferatu (1922).  I have never seen the whole thing, ever, but I really want to.  I think it’s on YouTube.