Trump Card

It's Saturday afternoon and I'm waiting for a phone call. The caller will be Gary, the guy who runs the IT Help Desk for my company, and he's based in Boulder, Colorado. I'm not really in the habit of talking to IT on the weekends, but I've made an exception.

Gary is going to read my tarot cards. At some point during a particularly rough week in the life of my laptop, Gary and I were on the phone a lot. So I asked him what his weekend plans were and learned that he occasionally reads tarot (which he pronounces "tuh-ROW") at a local bookstore. Of course I jumped at the chance to have the IT guy do a reading for me, even though there are several psychics and readers within spitting distance of my apartment (if you’re an Olympic Spitter.) But have those people ever brought my entire email inbox back from certain death when I accidentally deleted it? No, they have not.

At 5 minutes to 2pm, I am pacing around the living room in anticipation. “You’re going to do this in another room, right?” asks Rob.

Gary calls 5 minutes late.

“Sorry,” he says. “I was getting a massage and the masseuse was real chatty.”

Gary asks me how many times I would cut the deck if I was there, and we jump into the reading. I won’t give you all the details here, because let’s be honest. You don’t care. Suffice it to say that I am apparently trying to decide between two things and I am NOT to make the decision just yet. However, when the universe delivers a message to me about the decision, I must be ready to go or I will miss my chance. I need to stay on my toes, says Gary.

He emails me a recording of the conversation, which is made better by the fact that you can only hear Gary and not my stupid “uh huh”s and “um, yeah, that makes sense”s. I take notes on the whole experience and read them to Rob afterward. His eyes are closed, but I think he is listening.

I tell him that I got the Death card. His eyes open.

"It doesn't really mean physical death," I say quickly. "It could mean rebirth of some sort, or..." I consult my notes, "change or transition."

"No," Rob says. "I think it means Death. Good luck with that."