I was a Love Psychic

It started as a personal dare to myself,  I needed extra money, the advertisement beckoned:

"Psychics required for Psychic infoline, immediate start." 

Could I convince the company that I was psychic enough to hire?  Did I have any idea what I was getting myself into?  I call the number on the advertisement.

"Hello, I am calling to offer my services as a psychic for your psychic line."
"We have plenty, goodbye." A curt middle aged female voice cuts me off.

Not to be put off,  I call again but she doesn't answer.  Since her number is a cell phone, I give myself the simple pleasure of having the last word, well SMS:
"When your situation changes next week, please give me a call.  Thanks Scott."
I figure I'd never hear from her again. (Either that or my prediction will come true.)

Within a week I get a call from 20-something Cheryl.  She asks me to give her a sample "psychic reading". (I'd learnt to read Tarot cards from an ex-girlfriend, so I dust off the pack and crack it open.) There are two men in Cheryl's life; one that she's deeply attracted to (who doesn't even know she exists) and one who is a dear friend that Cheryl's just not attracted to:  It's a little like an Archie and Jughead cartoon (but then so is the job.)

The set up is simple. I punch in a code on my home phone and callers come through on my line. I can get 10 calls in 10 minutes or 1 call in a day.  If a call runs past 10 minutes the line would be cut by Telstra and the person would need to call me back on a special "Preferred Line"  number.  (This mysterious line never seemed to work, I even tested it from a mobile phone and it went through to Helen, the Psychic-Line owner.  Something is rotten in Denmark.)

Essentially, this job became a deep, dark, journey into the heart and mind of Australia's female population.  Over four months, I estimate talking to between 500 and 1500 people.  Out of these, only one was a man and even he revealed that he had drug problem. (Not hard to  predict when someone calls up stoned.)

"DOES HE LOVE ME?"  This, without  a doubt is what most women are consciously and unconsciously daydreaming all day long.  So what if I'm generalising? This, from my experience, is a major concern to just about every girl in the world, unless that 'he' is a 'she', but I digress. Catching him and keeping him still keeps her guessing this question all-day-long. Do I sound like a chauvinist?  Maybe I am.  But there are so many juicy variations on "Does he love me?" - "We live so far away, should I move?", "He's my business partners' boyfriend and I know he likes me," "He's making an effort but how serious is he really?" or "He was making an effort now he's cooled off." Do you really need to a call a psychic to know the answer to this one? Ditch the bitch and make the switch Honey.  He's just not that into you.

"I'm the one that got away, now he turned up in my life again."
"Is he involved with another woman who's a Leo?"
"And she's a bitch. Yeah!"
"Damn I'm good."

A  quick reading as I'm literally walking out the door:

"Does he love me?"
"Your husband's a good man, he's just having a hard time at work right now."
"Oh okay."
"It's because you have money problems at the moment and that's stressing you both out."
"Uhuh."
"Um, You're pregnant, aren't you?"
"Oh my god! YES!"

This, beyond love or money, I discovered, was the key concern in the back of most callers' minds.  I still believe that somewhere in evolution, that animal part of every woman is in a constant state of emergency (or at least at a kind of DefCon 5 holding-pattern) at least up until menopause.  Even today with advanced birth-control options, due to the extremely lethal nature of pregnancy up until the early 20th century, I believe women's preoccupation with it remains a throwback to past eons of evolution, when pregnancy was the ultimate game of Russian roulette.

Not a pretty thought, but it helped to explain the phenomenon I experienced over that summer. When I predicted that they were, or would be pregnant (and they were "late" or wondering) then every word I said thereafter was treated as gospel.   Furthermore, when someone in my position tells a person she is pregnant, then that baby becomes "meant to be." So there.

"And what's this about the psychic-line "fining" me $100 a month for not doing 1000 minutes of calls? This isn't funny."
"That's the deal."
"Cheryl, these calls are inconsistent."
"What about your preferred line, Scotty?"
"ARRRGHHH!"

It didn't take a psychic to figure out I was getting the fuzzy end of the fuzzy end of the lollypop here. Then, I got my phone bill. $0 for calls, $200+ for line-rental! Something has to give. I've produced 3 feature films, I have a university degree in media/communication, I edited my school newspaper, I spoke at parliament.  For God's sake I feel like a carney!

Late on Christmas Eve, I take a bath, the phone rings:
"I'm leaving my husband."
"It's a bad move, wait a week and it will resolve."

In my heart, I know she won't and will take the path that leads to heartache. That's exactly what she did. This call fascinated me because, like most people, I've wondered if we were ultimately driven by destiny or free-will: Here was a person that was headed for failure, maybe disaster (I'd drawn The Tower and Death card).

At a certain level, she had already made up her mind, I'm certain part of her just wanted to run up a couple of hundred bucks on hubby's phone-bill:   I could say what I liked but the deal was done.

Soon after that, I became convinced that we really didn't make that much difference; destiny casts its hand and the rest is history. If we step up and change the world like Gandhi or someone, it's because we were meant to.  At least it looks that way from a point of view.

My negotiations with Psychic-line company broke down. I wasn't bluffing when I told them I would walk unless we renegotiated.  In March 2007 after 5 months of dilgent service, I quit.  They still SMSed and called me for six months expecting me to jump back in, the frauds!  For a bunch of folks that traded on womens' intuition and gut feelings, their insights were pretty weak when killing the golden goose was put at stake. Fingers crossed, eh?  This is about money, nothing less or more.  I move on, counting the experience as an opportunity to gain some wisdom, a reasonably fascinating story to tell at parties, or maybe an article?  Will I count that as another successful prediction, why not?  Damn I'm good. 

Photo Courtesy of Ecastro, Creative Commons