The Four Seasons of Snow

I’m about to share with you a secret that could, in fact, be earthshaking in its significance.  I can, indeed, predict the future…perhaps even CAUSE things to happen. The catch is that I personally can NOT benefit from this gift. But others who are keen to my plight most likely can. My decision to come forward after many years of being a closet predictor is backed up by incredible statistical evidence, some of which I will share below. No, I’m not a perfect prognosticator, but there is undoubtedly statistical significance.  I have listed below a set of ordinary situations, some of which I have experienced hundreds of times.  If you note my behavior and do the opposite, you will benefit: 

Follow me into a bank and watch which teller line I get into.  The person in front of me will pull out a 55-gallon drum of pennies and try to deposit them.  Or they will have a list of 32 accounts they want to close. They will forget their ID, forget their deposit slips, or they will ask for directions to Birmingham, Alabama.

Follow me into a restaurant.  I will always get the table with the worst waiter/waitress.  Other people get their food in 12 minutes.  My waitress goes on break three minutes after taking my order. 

Follow me onto a plane.  Wherever I sit, you sit somewhere far away.  That is because every kook in the Western Hemisphere will sit beside me or within earshot of me.  Note my article on “New Plane Rules”.  People in moomoos, people with extraordinary Left-Wing or Right-Wing views, people who talk very loud, people who smell like yesterday’s tacos, and people who let their children crawl up and down my seat like it was a jungle gym.

Stock Market: A year ago there were some reverberations in the stock market as a result of an international credit squeeze.  Some banks showed some signs of weakness.  The market went down about ten percent.  I had a little extra money, and I decided to invest it, thinking we would benefit from the inevitable rebound.  It turns out that the only thing that was inevitable was sheer economic meltdown.  The day after I invested the money, the markets tanked.  Had you been watching and been acting in the opposite manner as I, you would have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, in the future value of your retirement accounts.

Follow me into a grocery store.  Whenever I decide to head for the checkout, you wait about a half hour.  It will take that long to clear out the hordes of humanity that will go to the checkout at the same time I do.  If for some reason you do go to the checkout the same time as I do, whichever line I choose to check out, you choose another.  It doesn’t matter which, just choose another.  Because in my line a number of things are likely to occur—  The person in front of me will be the cashier’s long-lost childhood friend or a twin separated at birth.  The person in front of me will try to use year-old coupons and get into an argument with the cashier.  The cashier will not know how to conduct the extraordinarily complex process of scanning food items and will have to make six adjustments to the bill, but in doing so they will  have to ring for the manager on duty, who by the way is somewhere back in the warehouse taking a nap. 

If I choose to go to Key West for a vacation, you should go to Alaska.  There will be a hurricane in Key West, or Cuba will use it as their beach head for their surprise invasion of the US.

I have grown so accustomed to such events that I have now emotionally and psychologically accepted the fact that they will happen.  AT the very least, this allows me to continue to be happy and not scorn fate or have self pity parties.  But that doesn’t mean that I should just forget about my amazing gift.  I do want to share it for society’s sake and for my friends’ sake.  Now, you can’t all follow me around; that would produce its own set of problems.  But, just be observant of my actions, and you will find ways to benefit.