Living in the Palace

It all started with a psychic I saw many years ago, when I was single before I met Husband.

Things weren't going well in Jewish Singles. I needed a sneak peak into my future. As a matter of fact, my girlfriends and I all needed sneak peaks into our futures.

From time to time, we’d do this. We’d pool our money and go see some celebrity radio psychic who came to town, or we’d go for individual readings, or we’d Rent-A-Psychic, installing one in the conference room at work, split the fee, and then traipse in and out of the room, pretending we had appointments.

This particular time, I found my own psychic in the Yellow Pages and went alone. He seated me in his living room carefully, and suspended a plastic pyramid in the air over my head. I looked up, concerned now that he might be too New Agey for me. I wanted specific, practical information. Nothing about my eternal soul. I was thirty-one, after all. I needed to know about marriage and children - like would I ever have either? To my chagrin, he wanted to talk about my many illustrious lifetimes and why I was wasting this one working for an insurance company.

When I got him back on topic, he quickly coursed through it. Yeah, yeah - depending on how I handled the end of the relationship I was in - and it was definitely going to end, news to me - my true love could be close by or years away. Yeah, yeah - I was going to have two children, a boy and a girl. Then he sat up and got quiet, like he was listening to something from far away.

“Oh,” he said. “Here’s something interesting: your son is going to be a great world leader.”

Here’s my advice for anyone who ever hears this from a psychic: don’t tell your son that the psychic said this. Because even if you tell your son this story like it’s an amusing anecdote about this funny thing you once did, that son might suddenly use that as an excuse to never work hard again. Knowing that he’s going to be a great world leader, he can kick back, lay around like a huge bum on weekends, and barely rise from bed on weekdays. What does it matter anyway? How hard can he be expected to work? After all, his fate is sealed. He’s already been anointed King.

Since Bar Mitzvahzilla believes he’s going to be a great world leader, there are whole problems that have been removed from his agenda. Worried about his future? No. Worried about where to go to college or whether he’ll get in? No. Worried about what he’ll major in? No. When pressed on this last point, fine. International Politics.

One day, appalled at him for again getting out of bed five minutes before we have to leave for school, I say, “How do you know the psychic meant you? Maybe he didn’t say it would be my son, maybe he just said one of my children was going to be a great world leader. Maybe it’s your sister!”

Daughter, startled, is not comforted by this idea the way Bar Mitzvahzilla is. Her ambitions are a little lower, like really low. For a while she wanted to be a cleaning lady. Then she wanted to be a cook. Not a chef. Just a cook, like at McDonald’s. When given the cornucopia of occupation choices in the world, anything from, yes, World Leader to Scullery Maid, she will choose the lowliest, most miserable occupation.

But it’s okay because they’re a team. Bar Mitzvahzilla looks at Daughter and reassures her.

“Don’t worry. No matter what you are, you can live in the palace.”

Do your kids know what they want to be when they grow up? Is one of your children more ambitious than the other? Are they different than you at the same age? Ever seen a psychic?
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