Lunch With The Horoscope

At the back of the sports page in today’s paper, to the right of the Aces On Bridge column that contains this phrase “You are in the four spades on the lead of the heart queen”, is the Horoscope. While I was finishing lunch today, I decided my Horoscope (or Horrorscope, or Whorescope) was worth a glance.


Before I tracked to Aquarius, I noticed that my wife and boys share the same astrological sign, Taurus. Who knew? And really, who cares? Anyway, the first earthshaking advice I received was, “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.” However, if there was a shred of truth to this line, it would have read, “If it’s broken, you can’t fix it.” This applies to most things around the house. When something isn’t working, my order of action is to check to see if, a) it is plugged in, b) see if a switch is “off” when it should be “on” and c) start swearing.

My horoscope montage ended with, “don’t rock the boat, be patient, and let nature take its course.” Well, had I taken that advice at about three o’clock this morning, all the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale I drank last night would be cause for a trip to the mattress store. I must admit that I can be quite a procrastinator when I have to use the restroom in the middle of the night, and it never works out. I try to will myself back to sleep, regardless of the bladder pressure, just to avoid crawling out of bed. After ten minutes of discomfort and fitful tossing, I make my way to the bathroom while trying to keep my eyes closed and then pee by sound. Guys have a real knack for the tonal differentiations of urine as it hits water; higher frequency means you are on the shallow side of the bowl. You have to correct to get that deeper, pitch perfect sound that proves you are directly in the middle of the bowl. A plastic sound means you are in the garbage can and no sound indicates you are streaming directly onto the tile wall, in which case you have to go into full body lockdown. But I am off track.

The funniest thing about the Horoscope was that it actually comes with a disclaimer that reads:

“The following astrological forecasts should be read for entertainment value only. These predictions have no reliable basis in scientific fact.”

I am the only one who thinks, “No shit.” I mean, I would love to meet the person who buys into this mumbo-jumbo only to read the disclaimer and think, “Damn! I was going to keep my head out of the clouds!” (Aries)

My advice is to pay more attention to Aces On Bridge. It offered this advice, “The key to this deal (and to so many others) is to combine all your chances.”