On the crappy fortune-teller who stopped me in the street

"Excuse me miss! I am a fortune teller and I have to tell you that you have a very lucky face. Very lucky!"

I stopped myself from compulsively rolling my eyes, having grown ever-used to meeting strange people on my block. And while they make for absurd and whimsical experiences, sometimes they are just an incredible pain in the ass.

"You will have great luck in January 2012. Next year, January. A great fortune."

"Well that's great? But I really have t--"

"You don't believe me? I will show you." He opened up a notebook and took out a loose pink sheet. "I will write on this piece of paper."

I was full of morbid curiosity that this man was about to try and convince me of his great and mystic powers on a main street on the border of Redfern. When he scrunched up his paper and handed it to me to keep in my fist, I half-hoped that this would be a hilarious prediction that I would win fifty grand on a scratchy and blow it all on Happy Meals and booze, or that my immediate future husband would be a failed pirate, relegated to managing a dodgy hostel in Haymarket because his sea-faring ways were made less lucrative by the transition from physical to digital music, as alas! -- he had made his money in old-school music pirating; pillaging the shipping containers of the big four production companies.

He asked my to pick a colour, my favourite. I don't have a favourite colour because I think I stopped caring in primary school, but I always say grey because it is boring and bland and it makes people think you are the kind of person who eats plain oatmeal and celery and is terrified of getting their hair wet in the rain.

Then he asked me to pick a number between one and five. I picked four and he seemed really annoyed that I had. Too bad, dude. Three is the obvious human approximation of randomness, so I would not be going there.

And then he asked me whether I loved my mum or dad more. I was perplexed because it was a wildly personal question and I've never actually been able to separate my mum and dad in my mind. They're like one irritating but loveable unit, designed to haunt my every major life decision until their senility ensures they cannot remember the details of my existence. I tried to explain my lack of preference to him, but he kept insisting that I was closer to one than the other. I picked my mum, mostly so I could get this show on the road, but also because I knew she'd be more upset than my dad if I hadn't picked her. He requested her name.

He wrote all of these down, at first spelling 'gray' in the American way which is more phonetic, but somehow less nuanced; like that Facebook friend who can't spell anything meaningful in the correct way, but you still kind of understand what they are saying.

Then he told me to look at the paper in my hand. I couldn't hear him very well because of the traffic, and I kind of gave him this look like, "Really, now? This is a parlour trick, not fortune-telling."

I opened the damn piece of paper and it had my colour, number and mother's name on it. Grey was spelled in British English. I was mildy amused, but mostly I was pissed off that I'd stopped for the kind of thing I could have seen on Breaking the Magician's Code in the late nineties, when I cared.

He rifled through a leather wallet and pulled out a photocopied letter for me to read. On it were some official looking stamps (which were actually emblems of a generic-sounding company rather than anything official) and a letter of referral from someone whose name I didn't recognise at all, touting the apparent gifts of the yogi in front of me. It's worth noting that the language was exclamatory and overly-formal. Like the kind of letters I write when I drink too much, except these were serious.

He asked me to write down my name, which I deliberately misspelled because I figured he should already know if he was really, really good. Then he pulled out little tabs of paper with people's names and cash amounts (fifty, sixty dollars) written on them, before asking me to write my name and an amount of money. I think he said the words 'bank account' and 'right now' though I'm not sure because of the traffic. In any case it confirmed my suspicions that the guy was a con artist and there would be no tales of failed pirates in my near future. I refused to sign or write anything. He started pressing me for my great family tragedy or secret. Of which my family has none, unless you count my dad's skin condition which he is ignoring at his own peril because he is an idiot.

"What is the biggest problem in your life? You must have one. Why won't you tell me your secret? What are your problems? You can trust me." He leaned into me and I leaned back, in that awkward manoeuvre which I haven't performed since the bad house parties of several years ago.

"I... don't have any problems? Umm... actually, I have to go to a concert. My problem is I really have to pick up a friend so I can go to a concert tonight and you're making me really late."

"A concert?" He seemed disappointed that I hadn't said 'cancer'. "Do you have any time right now? We can sit down somewhere and talk... I can tell you--"

All the alarm bells in my head were ringing. I had no idea if the guy was hitting on me or wanted my money but I was terrified and already late.

"I really have to get to this concert."

He looked at me, knowing that I was unconvinced and there wasn't a trace of shame in his face, as there would have been in mine if I had ever tried to pull shit like this. He asked for the piece of paper still in my hand, and I didn't want to give it up knowing my mother's name was on it. But I had to, of course.

"I think you had a piece of carbon paper under your note book."

I actually didn't, because my piece of paper had different letter strokes, but was obviously written in the same hand. And there was no scribbling out over the American spelling of 'gray'. But I said it anyway, so that he knew I hadn't believed him.

I will probably still buy scratchies in January. Just to spite him.