Follow Your Intuition

Here's something you don't know about me: I have been trying to cultivate my own psychic powers since I was a child. I didn’t have a particular aim in mind, I just thought it would be fun to read people’s minds and predict the future (and, hopefully, use my powers for evil instead of good).

Sadly, though, I’ve been spectacularly unsuccessful. Just last week, for example, I was called upon to predict the gender of my friend’s unborn baby. I placed my hands on her belly, got in touch with my inner wisdom, and was overcome with the sense that the child was a girl. The next day my friend had her pre-natal testing and told me the shattering news: her baby girl will grow up highly conflicted, as apparently she has a rather well formed penis.

It forced me to acknowledge that in the last few years I have predicted the gender of seven babies incorrectly and absolutely none correctly. Even by the law of averages I should have got some of them right. I suppose my unfailingly flawed intuition is really a gift in itself.

You know how psychics can predict what you’re going to say? Well, I wouldn’t have a clue what you’re going to say. In fact, half the time I don’t know what you’re going to say even after you’ve said it, which only proves that my memory is as bad as my telepathy.

Nor can I work out what other people are thinking. For years I’ve tried to read my husband’s mind, but have never succeeded. Of course, that’s just because I keep believing he’s thinking about something deep, when he’s really just thinking about work.

I do sometimes tell my husband to think of a colour, and occasionally I manage to guess it correctly, but that’s just because he always answers ‘blue’. Frustratingly, though, my husband can read my mind perfectly. Of course, that’s just because I’m always thinking about food.

I’ve made many attempts to perform telepathic communication with friends and family (kind of like sending a text message without using a phone), but these have also been unqualified failures. The closest I came was when I sent thought waves to my mother to call me, and a minute later the phone rang. Unfortunately it was just a telemarketer from India, who hung up in confusion when I called him ‘Mum’.

I suppose it’s not surprising that I don’t have psychic powers, as I don’t even have gut instincts. Actually that’s not true; I do have gut instincts, they’re just completely HOPELESS. I’ll meet a new person and my gut will tell me she’s fabulous and that she’s going to be my soul mate for life. Three weeks later she’ll tell me that she was a vampire in another life, and I’ll be forced to admit that my gut was wrong.

My gut instinct also gets me into terrible trouble on the roads. I’ll be driving home and my gut will tell me to turn right, which is the exact opposite direction in which I should be heading. And because my gut isn’t just telling me to turn right, but is also shouting gleefully, “Yippee! We’re nearly there!” I keep heading down the highway and don’t think to stop for directions until I end up in Perth.

Still, I haven’t given up on developing my psychic powers. I’m sure that with time it will happen. I don’t actually have any evidence to support this, my intuition just tells me it will.

Do you have any psychic powers? Or is your intuition as crap as mine?