I close the door behind me and ask the woman at the desk if there was any possibility of a walk-in appointment. You see, I just decided to stop in last minute — it was on my way home,  and it was pay day, so…why not.

“Oh, he’s on his lunch break. Can you maybe wait ten minutes?” she says.

“You know what, I’ll just come back another time. This was just a spur of the moment thing…”

As I’m getting into my car I hear a voice call out to me in the parking lot -

“You want a reading?”

Mark was coming back from his lunch break. Of course I want a reading. He knew that. Because Mark is a psychic.

This was my second time seeing him, and I DON’T KNOW WHY. Sometimes it’s pay day, and you just want to give someone $20 to tell you about your life for 15 minutes. Must be part of that whole daunting-mid-twenties thing: “I have no idea what I’m doing. Just tell me some things, and I’ll cherry pick the parts I want to believe.”

We sit at the table and he starts with a Tarot card reading. I select a card; he flips it over.

“Are you in a relationship?”

[Really? We gotta start with this, Mark?]

“I am not.”

“Well, you pulled the Knight in Shining Armor card. So someone’s going to be coming into your life, if he hasn’t already.”

This. This is why I happily give you my twenty dollars. (Although I’m REALLY REALLY hoping my Knight isn’t Steer-In guy.)

In the thirty minutes total that I’ve spent with Mark, he’s told me things that I already knew/things that could apply to any twenty-something female:

• I’m going to be making a lot of changes in the near future
• I’m very emotional
• I let people in too easily and they walk all over me and then I make excuses for them (duh)
• I’ll find success in something that will “put me in the spotlight,” but not until I gain more experience

And then he’ll hit me with something REALLY SPECIFIC, like

• I’m going to be working in healthcare marketing (?)
• I’m going to have four kids (!)
• I need to be careful for the next two months, because I’m GOING TO BE EXTREMELY FERTILE (!!!)

And then how about this doozy:

Mark: You’ve been crafting an ideal mate since you were little. Your (insert planet here) has been in (insert astrological sign here), so I bet your love life has been TERRIBLE the past couple years, right? And you’ve determined what you DON’T want?

Jenn: Check.

Mark: And now you’re meeting guys that you put on a pedestal, so you construct these fanciful, non-realistic expectations that never work out.

Jenn: Check.

Mark: So now that your (insert planet here) is moving back into (insert astrological sign here) you’re going to be finding ways to pull back closer to center.

Jenn: Uh-huh. So that’s what, the next couple months or so?

Mark: That’s the next two and a half years.

Should’ve asked for that $20 back so I could buy some wine and chocolates, because: AAAAAACCCCCKKKKK.