Britney Spears = role model?

So, Oldest Friend and I had our Christmas Dinner lunch on Saturday (don't ask, it was the only time we could do it, as we're both worldy women with hectic social calendars). It was quite delicious and much better than the last "good" Italian meal I ate (or, if you will recall, that I vommed...yes, I was the puker).

(As a complete aside and unrelated to the main "point" of this post, on our way from our fantastic parking spot to the restaurant, we passed a woman "riding" a stuffed ostrich. There was literally a stuffed ostrich head coming from between her legs, and she was somehow steering it and walking down the street like it was perfectly normal. Was this part of some job she had?? What kind of job?? I was extremely intrigued.)

Anyway, soon after we saw a sign for a psychic. "That might be fun," OF said. "I've never done it." "Me neither," I said. "Let's do it after lunch!" It might be a fun, spiritual thing to do, right? If Britney could take Sean Preston to a Hindu temple, we could be just like her (well, kind of) and do something similar. Duh, like get our palms read and have her do something to our chakras. That's spiritual, right?

So it was decided. After a leisurely, gluttonous midday meal, we headed out of the restaurant and up Wisconsin Ave. We saw the enticing sign "Psychic. $5. Ask about our two for one special." Two for one?! What a deal.

Into the building we walk. We follow signs that supposedly are leading us to this so called psychic. One flight of [steep and narrow] stairs. Then another. And another. And, yes, another. Finally, out of breath, we reach the psychic's door. It has a window. I knock on the window. Immediately thereafter, a dog (wearing an argyle sweater, mind you) runs to the door and starts yapping. There is a woman sitting at a table within our view. She looks to be in her late 40s or early 50s, with salt and pepper hair. She is on the phone. She is also staring into a magnifying mirror and either (1) plucking her mustache or (2) picking her teeth. We weren't quite certain. If we had been using our best judgment, we would have left right then. But we didn't.

Upon hearing her dog bark, she looked over and saw us at the door. She gave us the "one second" gesture. So we waited. She continued to pick/pluck/talk. We waited. The dog continued to yap. We waited some more.

About three minutes later, said pyschic got up from the table and walked her sweatsuit clad body into another room. She emerged soon after with a paper towel, which she was using to blot her face. Um, ew. Yet, we still did not leave. She walked into another room, at which point I looked at OF and said, "Dude, she obviously doesn't care about making her $5. Let's get out of here."

So we run away. We book it down one flight of stairs. Then down another. We hit staircase number three and come to a SCREECHING halt. Emerging from the tuxedo rental establishment that was conveniently housed in the same building was a man. A very big man. A very big man with a walker. A very big man with a walker who then proceeded to precede us down the remaining three flights of (need I remind you narrow, steep) stairs. Yikes! What if psychic decides to chase us down?? But what could we do?

At least we were able to not get winded going down the stairs. We get to bottom, at which point the man holds the door open for us, walker and all, and tells us to have a nice day. Gold star for politeness.

So, [very] long story short, we didn't even get our palms read (or whatever it is she was going to do). But, did we really want her touching us, anyway? Ew.