Maybe I should have given her shades?

Magnet #122 - Psychic Advisors

I want to say this was a magnet tchotcke from a stock house, either Corbis or Getty.

But, it seems somewhat apropos, in light of Saturday night's Doctor Who in the UK. And that's all I have to say about that, in order to respect the US broadcast schedule and not post any crazy spoilers.

Anyway, if storefront signs are to be believed, psychics seem to be everywhere, and who knows for sure if they're real or not. Over the years, I've gone to a few, mostly for fun. At Manhattan street fairs, at their storefronts in the Village and Midtown, and even to a private home in North Carolina. They've all given me various and sundry predictions, none of which I've remembered enough to take completely to heart.

But, last year, on a family trip to the Philippines, we met this elderly great-great-aunt-ish relative, who actually reads palms for a living. The whole family seems to be a little in awe of her, only because supposedly what she says is usually true - and it freaks them out a bit. And, we're a superstitious lot, Filipinos.

We'd never met the old crone before - and she was this tiny, tiny thing, bent over with age, with a weathered face that looks like she's lived a million years and then some. That old face was balanced by some rather youthful salt-and-pepper twin braids, a la the old Sun Maid raisin girl.

When she walked in to the house, the first thing she did was read our palms. She took my youngest sister's hands, and my middle sister's hands in hers, and mentioned (in native tongue) that they both have happy and bright futures - actually went so far as to say how many kids, marriage, etc., etc.

Then, she took my hands in hers, and she looked perturbed. She spoke to my aunts, and the gist of the conversation was that she couldn't read me.

Seriously. She said my future's unclear, and that she couldn't read my palms.

Hello. The woman's been reading palms for longer than I've been alive, and she couldn't read my future.

Yep. Officially freaked out.