The Oracle

Today Butterfinger and I had a fight. Shocking, I know, but we, like most human beings in committed relationships, have disagreements that generally turn into verbal arguments during which we try to slay and outwit one another with various participles of vocabulary ammunition. This one did not get particularly ugly nor did it go on for any extended period of time, but I was definitely still mad when I got out of the car to make a deposit at the bank. It was pretty ironic that I had to make this stop at the bank in the first place because the clash fundamentally had to do with money and our differing beliefs on its relative importance.

I had to wait in line for a teller, which is frustrating enough, and I am sure my facial expression was not doing much to hide my discontent, because the next thing I knew there was a woman in line in front of me telling me to smile. When I looked her way to acknowledge her presence I noticed she was an African American woman of medium build, not unlike the oracle from The Matrix, and I somehow felt compelled to hear what else she had to say. Once our eyes met she looked at me understandingly and simply said, “You are on the right track, do not worry about it, its not important”.

So is this sounding like a dream, or what? All I could manage to say back to her was that she could not possibly have any idea how much sense that made, to which she replied something similar to “oh, girlfriend, I know…”. How could she possibly know?! I was left dazed, stunned, and utterly speechless for a good 5 minutes or so while my brain tried to process everything that had transpired (I even counted my money wrong – another sign?). As I am sure you know by now, I do not subscribe to any school of thought that includes coincidence as an explanation for events, so I am leaning on a theory of resonance and string theory-based reasoning to explain what happened to me in line at the bank today. I will think twice before questioning the power of thought in the future.