The year we dropped BigBrother off for his freshman year at
college I was thirteen. On the way home we stopped at a seaside vacation town.
On the boardwalk, sandwiched in between the salt water taffy kitchen and a
tschoky souvenir place, stood a small store front with a hand painted window sporting
an All Seeing Eye and crystal ball with the words Fortunes Told.
I had five dollars the parents had given me to spend on the
rides on the boardwalk.
Instead I decided to invest it in my future and went in!
The shop was dark and draped in paisley shawls with lots of
fringe. A small table sat in the middle of the room with the requisite crystal
ball. I was impressed and amused at the same time.
Now I should state here that even at the ripe old age of
thirteen I didn’t believe in fortune tellers or mediums or the occult.
I just thought it was fun.
I plunked down my five dollars, sat down at the table and
waited for the old woman to do her ‘shtick’.
I guess I must have said or done something (who would have
thought…...) that made her angry.
Because she proceeded to tell me that she didn’t usually
tell people the bad things she saw in her crystal ball but in my case she’d
make an exception.
She told me, point blank, I was going to die in a car
accident in a green Pontiac when I was eighteen.
I wasn’t laughing quite as much when I left as I was when I
walked in.
Still, I didn’t really believe it. And as long as I stayed out
of green Pontiacs I would be okay, right?
I didn’t give it much thought for the next five years.
Fast forward to my eighteenth year. I started dating a guy
who drove; you guessed it, a green Pontiac.
Possibly this was a subconscious choice I made, but I didn’t
know what kind of car he drove until AFTER I accepted the date with him.
Hmmmm……
It all worked out okay though, because not long after we
began dating he traded the Pontiac for a Toyota.
I was safe!
Until one day when my parents excitedly told me they had
just bought a new car!
I was excited too, having just gotten my license. I asked
what kind they bought and my mother said, a beautiful green Pontiac Lemans!
Gulp!
I thought I had escaped the fortune teller’s prediction and
now here it was rearing its ugly head again!
I must have looked funny because my parents asked me what
was wrong, so I told them about the fortune teller.
My mother immediately went to the phone and……changed the
color of the car they ordered to blue.
Her most UNFAVORITE color in the world she told me!
“Not that I believe in such things,” she said, “but if
anything did happen to you in that car I’d feel responsible! No need to take chances!”
(My parents were level headed but superstitious to a fault!)
So, all’s well that ends well…….
Except for that one night on Elwood Road in the pouring rain
when a car cut me off and I jammed on the brakes, did a 360° and finally came
to a stop nose to nose with a family in a station wagon in the opposite lane of
oncoming traffic!
I can still see the look of sheer terror on their faces. And
I was so scared I went straight home and didn’t drive for a week!
True story!
