Monday, May 28, 2012

Strategic Planning With The Mystic Eye

  


   While cleaning out my son's room this weekend, I ran across The Mystic Eye, Fortune Telling Machine.  I love this toy and instantly retrieved it from a pile of Lego's and discarded trophies and placed it in a position of importance on my kitchen bar.  I informed my family that all future decision making would be done by The Mystic Eye.  My daughter's eyes lit up with excitement and my son rolled his, knowing full well that my decisions are not driven by a toy fortune teller. Allie grabbed the machine, popped in a coin and asked the ever important question, "Will I be a good cheerleader?"  The eyeball proudly announced that she most certainly would be.  Thrilled with the validation of her expert cheering skills and natural spirit, she tumbled off to try different ways to braid her hair and still maintain a high level of cuteness.  I asked if I would ever get any rest from the constant cleaning and cooking and after some time pondering the question, the eye informed me that it was highly doubtful.  Damn eyeball.  Perhaps I'm asking the wrong questions.  

   In fact, there are a few unanswered questions that would be worth dropping a few coins for.  I would like to know how it is that I came home from work one day to discover that the front door of our entertainment cabinet had been broken right down the middle and carefully placed back together, waiting for the next person to simply touch it and have it fall to the ground in pieces.  If only the Mystic eye could tell me which child was hanging from the hinges and broke my living room furniture.  I would like to know who stole my jewelry, my boyfriend, and/or my dog at certain points in my life.  These are things that would be handy to know.  


   As I map out my retirement plans for the future and strategically secure my place as a financially sound, old woman, I should have asked the eye if I should buy Facebook stock instead of relying on my terrible stock market instincts and media hype.  I would be richer today had I taken guidance from the floating oracle in a box that sits in my kitchen.  Of course,  I only invested what I could afford to lose and I don't think ten shares of worthless stock will affect my future standard of living.  You have to invest big to win big, so I will never be rich from the stock market. The mystic eye will confirm this I'm sure.     

   My son passed at his chance to ask the eye about his future and chose to continue with his online studies of reconfiguring the iPhone and ways to legally download unreleased movies in European countries not under U.S. jurisdiction.  He paid me no attention as I asked about colleges, pay raises, future daughter-in-laws, and other important topics.  The eye offered little useful information.   

   My daughter tumbled back into the kitchen, donning a perfect fishtail braid, popped a coin into the mystic eye and asked if she would be a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader.  The eye confirmed our future travels to Dallas and Allie tumbled off knowing her future was secure. 

   I left the eye and wandered off to check email.  I noticed a suspicious message from FedEx stating that my package had been detained at customs and I had to wonder what my son may have ordered from his international friends, as I had not ordered anything online since the Chalene Extreme Workout tapes and my failed attempt at Buns of Steel.  And why was it detained, I wondered.  The email went on to explain that I needed to confirm personal information and I chose to walk away from it, suspecting a phishing scheme.   I should ask the Mystic eye.    Perhaps it can shed some light.   I can only hope it isn't a live animal or something, now waiting in a state of perpetual hold because I'm not giving up my personal info.  I never really know what is going to arrive here as my husband orders from the on-line hunting shows, my son orders parts to computers that I didn't even know exist and my daughter has begged me to buy the "Grow Your Own Butterfly Garden" with live butterfly larva.  Realizing now that customs does detain certain objects, I'm reminded of a 4th grade project where I had to write a report about Alaska.  I wrote to the governor asking for information about their great state and if they could send me a penguin.  I had faith that my new pet would be shipped straight to my house, without delay,  because I was very polite in my asking. I'm still waiting for that penguin today.  I only hope it didn't get stuck at customs with butterfly larva and unreleased operating systems. Next time I'm in the kitchen, I'll ask the eye if my rare Alaskan penguin will ever arrive.  It's been a terribly long wait and I'm certain the Mystic eye knows.  Until then, I understand that we now have a copy of the next Twilight Movie we can watch as long as we don't mind it being in Russian.  









  


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