Friday, August 14, 2009

"Did you ever...?" (The Horoscope)

“Did you ever…?”
by Melech



Did you ever wonder about the Horoscope, and how some people let it completely control their lives? Even though he says he just does it for fun, my neighbour, Mark, will not make any major or minor decisions without first consulting a multitude of charts. When Susan, Mark’s wife, asked him to move some boxes from the cellar out to the garage, Mark said that he had consulted his Horoscope and that Sagittarius was in direct conflict with Scorpio, which clearly indicated that he should not do any physical labour. Susan informed him that if the boxes were not moved straightaway, her skillet was about to come in direct conflict with his head.

I should have been suspicious of the validity of Astrology in general, when my neighbour, Bing (no relation to Crosby), asked me to read his Horoscope to him. He said he couldn’t do it himself because just the other day, his Horoscope had warned him not to do any reading for at least two weeks. I asked him what “sign” he was. “Leo”, he replied. After I finished reading, Bing said: “See? I told you! That is really me. That stuff is all real”. “Is it?” I said; “I just read Aquarius.”
As he was walking out of my house, he said that if I ever did anything like that again, he would braid my lips.

The Horoscope only held my interest for a very short time. The Astrological signs before and after mine always said great things like: “Today is your day! You will find success, fortune and romance.” My Horoscope always read like a prophecy of doom. For example, yesterday, I was finally going to clean out the refrigerator and throw away all the leftovers. Then I remembered that my Horoscope had warned me to avoid the colours blue and green. I slammed the refrigerator door shut and decided to make a phone call instead. Only then did I remember that the other warning was to avoid conversations with someone who might betray me. I didn’t know who that could be, so I didn’t speak to anyone the entire day. No point in taking chances

Today, my Horoscope looked a little more promising, as it advised me that if I engaged in outdoor activities, I would feel refreshed, rejuvenated, and that the day would hold many surprises for me.

It was a beautiful, calm, sunny day when I went outside to cut the lawn. After about 30 or 40 attempts, the lawnmower started right up, and so did the rain. Actually, it was more like a minor monsoon. As I was putting the lawnmower away, a man ran by and assured me that this sort of thing never happened in his hometown. I wanted to shoot him for that helpful bit of information.
The storm continued with such force, I was seriously considering building an Arc and lining up animals in pairs, when just as suddenly, it stopped and the sun came out again. The front and back yards were flooded, but even if they weren’t, the lawnmower will probably not dry out until next summer. So much for outdoor activities.

When my sister informed me that Jack the Ripper, Norman Bates, and thirty-eight inmates on death row all share my Zodiac sign, I asked her how I could ever be expected to get excited over the Horoscope again. I also told her that I had arrived at the conclusion that the real problem is, that by the time I was born, all the good Astrological signs had been given away. I just know that if my mother could have held out a little longer (maybe two or three months), I might have gotten a better sign. I told her that I don’t have any real proof of this yet, but that I strongly suspect that whilst I am sleeping, all my planets and stars get together, hold a big meeting, and plot against me. My sister told me that I sounded like a “case history” on paranoia, and she hung up on me.




“Did you ever…?” is a weekly newspaper column by Melech
©2008 by Melech. All rights reserved.
The next column will be posted on August 21, 2009
File #RBCOL08

3 comments:

  1. Brilliant again Melech tc hope you are well.
    Angel
    xx

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  2. "Today, my Horoscope looked a little more promising, as it advised me that if I engaged in outdoor activities, I would feel refreshed, rejuvenated, and that the day would hold many surprises for me."

    Well, one out of three ain't bad, is it?

    ReplyDelete