Baby’s First Tarot Reading
It was not a dark and stormy night. It was a beautiful Texas October evening, but I was about to come into contact with a modern-day witch… maybe… kinda…
I’m sure you’re actually not wondering how I found myself at a tarot reading with a little old woman in a tank top dress in my buddy’s guest bedroom at my friend’s birthday party, because, well, I seem like someone who bases every choice on the shake of a magic eight ball. And that’s fair. But it is kind of an odd experience, even for me.
Okay, so, to set the scene, I’m at my friend’s house, we’re having a birthday party, there’s like 12 people there, it’s a Monday at maybe 8:30 pm, it’s a supermoon, I just started my period, the tarot reader is the birthday party entertainment, the bones are the skeleton’s money, she’s set up in the corner of the guest bedroom at a children’s folding table, the room smells like incense, the windows are shut (fan going), and she’s in a tank top dress. (I don’t know why this is a standout detail to me, but it is. I saw all of her arms.)
I walk into the room, and she stands from her chair, never actually straightening her shoulders all the way, and she shakes my hand. My hand was, in fact, clammy and quivering because that happens any time I have to meet anyone new, ever. We sit down. and I take stock of the trinket table in the corner next to us (her card deck, a sign that says she does palm readings separately, costume jewelry bracelets, and her business cards).
She asks, “Is this your first time?”
I say, “Yuhuh”
You guys, I don’t know why, but I was sitting in my chair like a little lad attempting to win a best-posture award; hands clasped in my lap, ankles crossed, back stiff as a friggen board, genuinely trying to be on my best behavior for the witch.
And then I nervous-burped and remembered the two mustard- and ketchup-doused hotdogs I ate right before coming into the room, and I wondered if she thought I smelled like hotdogs.
She shuffles some cards, splits the deck into thirds, has me tap the top card of each sectioned deck twice, and say my name out loud.
She shuffles cards again, sprawls them across the table, and tells me to pick seven cards randomly. I do, counting out loud. Why did I count out loud? Heck, if I know.
She shuffles the deck again and then stops.
“What an interesting necklace. It looks very old — it’s an old design,” she says. (It’s a golden teardrop)
“Oh, yeah, my grandma gave it to me when I was in high school,” I say.
YES, I know I’m giving her information to work off of, okay! Honestly, I wanted this to go well for her because the three people who got their readings before me said she was way wrong about everything, and I just wanted her to feel encouraged.
We get back to the witches’ Uno, and the very first card she shows me?
Death, yay
I wish I were kidding when I say she gasped.
This diva clearly took an improv class in her lifetime, though, because she said yes. and…. “You carry a lot of grief in your life… Your grandma? Who gave you the necklace? She’s passed on.” Okay, lucky guess. (She was right, and I started crying. Please remember that it’s a supermoon and my emotions are, in fact, tied to the rock in the sky.)
After that, I don’t remember every detail, and I actually don’t remember any of the rest of the cards she pulled, but I do remember the gist of it was that I need to let go of “what ifs” and “what could’ve been” and just accept the universe as is. Blah, blah, blah, control issues, blah.
She also said that I didn’t pull any relationship cards because I’m satisfied in that area, and I know that’s right.
BUT THEN SHE SAID
“Why do I keep getting ‘babies’ from you?? Just babies, babies, babies. Are you scared of being a mother?”
Now, something important to know about me is that my factory setting is spewing nervous truth. I wish, in moments like these, that I knew how to socially lie, but alas, I told her every detail about how I always wanted to be a mom, but for the last few years, I’ve been thinking maybe I don’t want to have kids. Really light, breezy stuff to tell a stranger, ya know. And then the witch says, “You thought you were pregnant before. It’s good that you weren’t.”
Thank you so much for confirming all my fears, madam!! This is going well and is fun for me!!!
At this point, I’m trying to wiggle out of there the best I can when she starts on, “What would grandma say, Allison?” and then she starts talking in a different voice and says, “We’ve got to let it go.”
Ugh. In that moment, I knew her jig was up. My grandma would not let anything go. That force of a woman held Grudges(TM). Nan’s enemies list was a mile long and encompassed everyone from the child who talked back to her when she came to have school lunch with me in 2007 to my father. So I nodded, hugged her (this is inexplicable), and then left.
Can someone tell me if they know a good psychic I can go to to ask if my tarot reader was legit, please?
