THE GODDESS OF NICKELS AND DIMES

IT'S ALMOST CHRISTMAS AND OTHER PREDICTIONS 
By Psychic Mystic Madam Misty Merkel

The spirits from the great beyond tell me that it is almost Christmas.  They told me to wish everyone a Merry Christmas but, "watch out for the New Year."  The spirits have not gone into detail about what is going to happen but, I will keep all of my readers informed as to any updates I receive.

Now, aside from decorating my mailbox with bows and pine cones for the holidays I have been busy giving clients psychic readings regarding their own personal futures for 2014.  For example, my neighbor's daughter Pansy stopped by my trailer earlier this morning to ask me whether or not she should accept a proposal of marriage from a man who works as a surgeon at the local hospital.   Offhand, I wanted to tell this young lady to go look for a husband with a descent job like roofing or snowmobile repair and drop this looser who cuts away at peoples innards all day.  Surgery must be about the rottenest job a person could have and I doubt you get paid very much for doing it.  Guys doing roofing work usually make between $8-$10 per hour in this area and they only work about 4 months out of the year.  Snowmobile repairmen make slightly less but, they only work half as many months as a roofer.    Finding a man with one of these dream jobs is what a young girl should be doing now days.  As far as snowmobile repairmen working only two months, It's not that we don't get lots of snow in Northern Michigan it's just that guys up here who ride snowmobiles usually spend most of the winter in jail for driving under the influence.

"In Northern Michigan if you drive a snowmobile under the influence you will hit a tree and you will be arrested after they release you from the trauma center."  At least that's what the public service announcement ad says.

Getting back to the daughter of my neighbor and her question about marriage; I decided that because I personally held a prejudice against marrying someone with a crummy job like surgeon, I owed it to my client to get a fair, unbiased answer so I got out my crystal ball and attempted to give the girl a reading.  The only problem was that my crystal ball had a big crack in it and had become so foggy I couldn't see anything.  I have another crystal ball but, when I got that one out I observed that it also had a big crack in it and all the water had leaked out.  This ball must of gotten cracked a while ago because the little guppies I kept inside of it were all dried up.  I still tried to Davine the future with it however, all I could see was the past.  When I stared into the Crystal ball I saw my little guppies flopping around on the wet gravel as they slowly suffocated from lack of water.   I broke off my contact with the crystal ball when one of the dying guppies spoke to me saying "were going to get you for this Mystic Madam Misty Merkel."  

After dismissing the dead guppy vision as a latent guilt effect I decided to try a surefire way of answering poor Pansy's question about her suitor.  I went over to my coach and dug around under the cushions and after pulling up a wine bottle cap, a Princess DI doll and some kettle corn kernels I found a slightly worn nickle.  I then sat down directly across from Pansy and looked directly into her yellow-green eyes.  "This is very important," I said to Pansy, "I need you to spit on this nickle and close your eyes while I toss it.  If the nickle lands with the head up then you should marry the surgeon.  If it lands with the tail up then you need to set your sights on marrying a low skilled-tradesman.  Nod if you understand me."  Pansy responded with a very definite nod and then hit that nickle with a really gooey glob of spit.  There seemed to be a few bits of bacon floating in Pansy's spit so I knew she had just been to breakfast at Flap Jack Shack.

After I saw that Pansy had tightly shut her eyes I tossed the nickle into the air and watched as it rolled over and over, spewing saliva across the breath of my table then, the coin did the gravity thing and fell flat on the table with the backside up.   Pansy looked at the coin and gasped.  With the flip of a mere nickle Pansy's entire future had been laid out before her.

"Maybe I didn't put enough spit on the nickle," Pansy remarked.

"No dear," I replied, "your destiny wasn't determined by spit,  it was determined by the goddess of nickles and dimes.  She has determined that you should not marry this surgeon fellow."

"Maybe we should have  used a quarter," Pansy responded.

"No," I said, "A quarter would be a sign of wanting to marry just for money.  A nickle shows that you are dedicated to doing the right thing by marrying only for love."

Pansy sat for a moment thinking over my words and then looked at me and said," you're right as always Madam Misty.  I will dump the surgeon right away and find myself a nice low-skilled-tradesman.  Where would I find such a man?"  Pansy asked.

"I always find those kind of guys in biker bars.  Try to avoid the guys with extreme beards.  You never know what might be living in those hairy things."

"So, how much do I owe you Madam Misty?" Pansy asked.

"You owe me five hundred," I replied.

"Five hundred dollars?" Pansy asked with a look of shock on her face.

"No, five hundred nickles," I replied.  "I'm going to go to the Casino on Christmas Day.  There's a drawing for a brand new double-wide and I definitely need a new trailer.  The floor boards have been giving way in this one.  My bed boosts went through the floor last night and my tub is sinking fast."

After Panza paid me I reflected on what a great country we live in.   Where else can you tell a person  how to live their life and have them willingly pay you for your direction.  Only in American my friends.

Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year

Mystic Madam Misty Merkel

  

THANKSGIVING, BLACK FRIDAY, SHOES AND HOW I GOT BANNED FROM THE MALL

By Psychic Mystic Madam Misty Merkel
Northern Michigan's Trailer Park Psychic

I am so glad that Black Friday is over with.  Last weekend was just awful and I didn't get to take anything home from the mall except a ticket for a court appearance just before Christmas.

The weekend started with Thanksgiving which for the most part went rather well.  I decided not to go down state to see my relatives and certainly didn't want any of them coming up here.  My parents, aunts and uncles all have a weird way of looking at things that makes you think they are not just of Central European extraction but, that they came from some other planet.  For instance, they still think it's o.k. to decorate a white pine Christmas tree that was cut down a month ago with sixteen inch tapered candles.   The fire department loves my family.  It's also a tradition in my family for the men to urinate in the fireplace.  I guess they play some sort of game to see which one of them can drown the most coals.    Of course, once the fire is completely extinguished   the men in my family also expect the women to get down in there and get the fire going again for the next round.
My sisters didn't use to be so unpleasant but, they  are both having a mid-life crisis because they are getting close to turning 40.  I was born the same year they were so I'm gong to turn 40 soon also but, I don't really care because I'll just continue lying about my age to everyone I meet until I'm too senile to be tormented by age-vanity.

So, I was perfectly content to dine alone and have a nice holiday dinner of wine and cheese curls when my neighbor dropped by with a nice fresh pile of roadkill.  He told me he already had a freezer full of meat that he had scraped-up last summer so he wondered if I wanted to have his latest find for my turkey day dinner.   My neighbor wasn't quite sure about what kind of creature he had brought over but we both agreed it had to be some type of bird since there were lots of feathers mashed into the carcass.  

I used my turkey fryer to cook the dead bird.  It tasted real good but, I started a small fire in the living room.  You really have to watch that grease and keep it from spilling over.  I had to waste a half bottle of wine to put the fire out.   Note:  you have to use wine or beer to put out a turkey fryer fire because some types of whiskey will just make the fire worse.  I'm just glad I didn't change the batteries in the fire alarm because it would have been really irritating listening to all that noise.   It's good to remember not to keep working batteries in those nasty fire alarms.  Otherwise, every time there's a little smoke in the house a hideous noise just eats away at your brain until you just want to die.  I personally sleep a lot better at night knowing that I won't be disturbed by the noise from my fire alarm.
Well, once Thanksgiving was over with it was time for me to concentrate my energies on Black Friday.  I knew exactly what I wanted to buy on Black Friday.  I needed to purchase a new pair of shoes.  I've been wearing hiker boots that I purchased at Goodwill seven years ago.  I've had some really negative feedback both from the spirit world and this world regarding my footwear.  I finally decided to go down to the local mall and pick up a pair of cheap shoes on Black Friday.  It seems that a store in the mall called Bait n' Switch Shoes had a "Buy One Get One Free" sale.  I couldn't resist the great deal so I camped out at the mall four hours before midnight just to get in to purchase some really nice shoes at Bait n' Switch.

I was so excited when I was finally allowed to shove my way through a mass of smelly, fleshy customers and enter into the mall.  I then ran out of the food court at the mall entrance and continued down a corridor until I arrived at Bait n' Switch Shoes.  The entire front of the store was covered with banners picturing giant colorful shoes with "Buy One Get One Free" blazing in bold print all around each shoe.  I'll tell you that I was so excited once I burst thought the door of that shoe store that I was literally shaking when I brought my two pairs of shoes up to the register and waited smugly to be checked-out.  Since I was the only in the store I didn't actually have to wait in a line to be checked out but, I had to wait for an elderly lady to make her way to the counter from the backroom.

"Hello," I said as the lady approached the checkout lane.  The lady had white hair and was so stooped over her eyes were looking down at the floor.  The woman wore bright red lipstick.   "You must be expecting a lot of business in here today."  I added.

"Not really," she replied.  It's going to be slow today so, we're getting a head start on our inventory by spending the day counting back stock in the backroom."
I kind of detected a bit of resentment in the lady's tone as if she was irritated that she had to stop her counting back stock and come out here and wait on me.  I was willing to overlook her attitude because I was still really excited at the prospect of buying one pair of really nice shoes and getting the second pair for free.
Now the shoes I was buying had a price on them of $19.99 per pair.  The sales tax in Michigan is roughly 6%.  So, I expected to pay about $21.20 for my shoes but instead, when she rang me up the clerk said that I owed her $42.38.  In other words, I owed her twice what I thought.  "Listen Missy," I said, "I'm complying with the sign over these shoes that says buy one get one free.  I believe I should be paying about half this price since I am buying two pairs of shoes."
The lady looked at me directly in the eye and said that "you are buying one shoe and getting the other shoe for free.  If you pay full price for the left shoe then you get the right shoe for free and vice versa.  Can't you understand English?" the clerk bleated sarcastically.

"This sounds like a real rip-off," I complained in a very loud voice.  I demand to see the manager."

The clerk then got on the phone and told the manager that she had a problem at the register with a customer.  The manger bounded out of the backroom and came up to the check-out lane.  The manger was just a young kid about 18 years old.  This boy had red lipstick plastered all over his face and it seemed to match the same lipstick the elderly clerk was wearing.  The boy was very disheveled with his shirt tails were hanging out and his shirt just half buttoned.

"So what's the problem Carol?" the boy asked.

"This woman wants a free pair of shoes from us," the elderly clerk answered.  "She claims that our buy one shoe for full price and get the other shoe for free means she should get another pair for free.  I think this woman is a shoplifter."
The young boy turned to me and asked "Is this right?  Are you trying to steal a free pair of shoes from us?"

"I was just in here to get in on your 'buy one  get one free' shoe sale," I replied.
Well, the manger of the shoe store instructed the clerk to call store security and I was promptly arrested for attempting to steal shoes.  A sheriffs deputy showed up and gave me a ticket to appear before a judge for attempting to steal shoes from a retailer.  Then, before I left the  mall I was informed that I was permanently banned from shopping there.     So, for me "Black Friday" became "Bleak Friday".  Lucky for me that the nearby gas station had a buy one get one free sale on Morgan David wine.