Divination

"Don't go to a mind reader, go to a palmist. At least I know you've got a palm." --Snappy Put Downs and Funny Insults, a hallmark of American Literature.

I feel like the legitimacy of this practitioner is only enhanced by the bad spelling on this sign.

Once at a little thing called the Hugh O'Brien Youth World Leadership Congress, a met a girl from India named Seema. She asked the cadre of American attendees a slew of questions about our mathematics education, determined to prove that India was outflanking us. I think we even got down to writing equations on napkins, but I don't remember which nation's 16-year-olds came out on top. She also became one of my best friends through the week-long camp and read my palm. (She also gave me a bunch of face massages, which was kind of weird, but really relaxing...) To date, Seema is the only person who has given me an interpretation of my hand's markings, and she was really just a novice.

What she said though was absolutely perfect: my success line (is that what you call it?) was deep, indicating I'd accomplish important things, and there was someone who entered my life and never left (be still my beating teenage heart).

I really do not need another palm reading after that wonderfully (albeit incredibly vague) optimistic one.

Nonetheless, as I get older and older and less assured of the course my life will take, I feel like I wouldn't mind some sort of psychic guidance. I have thought it might be nice to schedule an appointment with some stranger that could give me some possible inkling of what I can expect of my coming days. Sure, we write our own destiny and all that, but how about creating some positive self-fulfilling prophecies?

However, my cousin's fiance was told by a psychic that he would die young. I'd like to avoid that sort of declaration. We all decided that she must be a charlatan.

After Seema read my palm and taught me the very basics of palm reading, I attempted to make up life narratives for my church cohorts at our girls' summer camp based on the lines and their palms. We weren't allowed to bring face cards, presumably because they were evil, but no one got on me for practicing a form of divination.

I really may have stopped in when I saw the sign proclaiming $2 Palm Readings that could illuminate my past, present and future and explore the themes of "love, carier, health, family, travil," but I didn't have any cash.

Next time.