My Life as a Phone Psychic #1

After my divorce and after September 11th, I became so depressed that I never left my apartment for years. Eventually, a friend took pity on me and signed me up as a phone psychic. I laughed and told him I wasn’t a psychic. He said all I had to do was tell people what they wanted to hear. I told him that in order to tell someone what they wanted to hear, I’d have to know them first. He laughed and told me I was overthinking it.

So I started, and before long I was in the top thirty out of over ten thousand psychics on the platform. I learned quickly that ninety five percent of my callers were women and four percent were gay men with the same female mindset. The one question they always asked, every single time, was, “Does he love me?” Narcissistic women live for that question. They take no responsibility for their own reasoning. They expect someone else to hand them their answers.

Before long, I had a complete script ready before they even spoke. I would tell them the spirits said they were loving, caring, giving, and sharing all the time, and they never took time for themselves. I’d tell them to pamper themselves with a manicure, pedicure, facial, and massage because they deserved it. What woman would hang up at $6.99 a minute?

Then I’d tell them there were two main men in their life, one pushing toward them who they didn’t want, and another drifting away. They’d always agree. The one they didn’t want was their husband or boyfriend. The one drifting away was the man they actually wanted. Reading simple minds is easy.

On April 7, 2003, I got a call from a woman in upstate New York. She spoke in a whisper about a man named Russell that she was in love with. She asked if Russell loved her and if he’d received her letters. I told her yes, and that he carried one of her letters in his pocket every day. She was thrilled.

She told me it was Russell’s birthday, that she was channeling energy to him in New Zealand, and that he was getting married that day. I had a gut feeling she was talking about Russell Crowe. I Googled his name. Sure enough, it was his birthday and he was getting married.

So I told her that minutes before he walked down the aisle, he read her letter and placed it in his inside jacket pocket next to his heart. She sighed and moaned with every detail. I described him like his character Maximus from Gladiator, strong, honorable, fearless, a leader of men. She ate up every word.

I could not believe a woman in her mid forties was pining over a man she’d never met, paying $420 an hour for a stranger to tell her lies about someone he didn’t know. This went on for more than an hour until her money ran out. Over the next few months she called several more times, still clinging to the fantasy and pushing away any real man in her life.

I should probably tweet this to Russell Crowe with my apologies. @RussellCrowe