I’m radioactive!

Standing in the back aisle of the local Kmart, I came across a test kit for determining if your microwave is leaking.  My first thought was, holy crap…my microwave could be irradiating my beautiful single-wide trailer, with me and my miniature schnauzer included!  My second thought was, I wonder if I concentrate really hard if I can get this little tester to light right up.  Stay with me…this is how my mind works.

I picked the tester up, it had a shiny black surface, like vinyl.  The packaging showed an ominous radioactive symbol, a bright red, right in the middle of the area that now appeared black.  Apparently the tester detects the microwaves and the symbol appears, like magic…like finding a pure white, wooly caterpillar–foretelling of a long hard winter, but in this case sterility and bleeding gums.  Again, the idea of concentrating my mental energies on this tester, to bring the symbol out of the black depths had goose bumps running up my neck.

I clutched the tester in both hands, pinched between thumbs and pointer fingers, like someone reading a winning lottery ticket for the fifth time.  I concentrated on the area where the symbol should be, my eyes almost crossing.  I held it about six inches from my face.  Five seconds in and I swear I could see a ghost image of the symbol, like the lady of the lake rising from the depths–the sword represented my newfound psychic abilities. My pulse quickened.

If such a thing is possible…I concentrated harder, spurred on by the ghost image.  My eyes were slits and perspiration beaded on my forehead.  The faintest pink pulsed within the specter and what was once faint began to take form and showed clearly distinct lines.  My eyes widened as the symbol took full form–a phoenix from the ashes.  My heart pounded.  I glanced around to see if there was a witness.  I stood alone.  I frantically flipped the package over and read the small print.  What were the repercussions?

My eyes quickly scanning the fine print.  A bowl.  A bowl of water is placed in the microwave.  The water boils.  The boiling water creates heat.  Heat.  The tester measures heat.  Heat?!?  My fingers pinching the tester right where it’s affected by heat.  My shoulders slumped.  I was once again a normal citizen.  No longer a member of the mutant brotherhood.  I chuckled nervously to myself, wondering where this placed me on the MMPI.

I’m psychotic, er…I mean psychic.

Okay, lets start with a mild disclaimer, that I’m not entirely sold on the concept of having psychic powers, but I have had some very salient, personal experiences with it. A more recent example reminded me of the previous ones, as I had purposefully tried to forget them and with good reason.

I was at work. I’m a 2^nd shift supervisor at a factory, so I do a lot of running around making sure everything is running right and that everyone is following procedure (safety, good manufacturing practices, etc.). As I was walking I blurted out a line of dialogue from a movie I vaguely remembered, “…blew the shit out of our fruits,” which had absolutely nothing to do with anything I was doing at that moment—purely spontaneous, nonsensical muttering. The next morning I was scanning the channels and the title ‘Shanghai Knights’ rang a bell. I selected it and it not only happened to be the movie that the line of dialogue was from, but the very next line spoken was the one I blurted out, and THAT made me take notice.

Now I had mentioned how I had essentially tried to forget about previous premonitions and that I felt I had good reason, and I will get to that, but I will cover a couple innocuous examples first. Back when I was too young to be legitimately working, I had a part-time job at a comic book store. I stocked shelves, assisted customers and mostly read when things were slow—it was great. Well…I got into an argument with another kid working there at the time, and I became so frustrated that I got a headache. I told him that I was done arguing as I had a headache and he said, “That’s my superpower…I give headaches to people I argue with.” This being a completely normal thing to say, as we were both nerdy, comic book geeks. Pissed off, I blurted out, “Yeah, well…I popped both of the tires on your bike!” Now I said this to just get him out of my face, and he did immediately go outside to check on his bike. He was back in the store in a matter of seconds and basically called me an asshole. I was sure he was messing with me, so I went out to look at his bike and lo and behold…both tires were flat. I tried unsuccessfully to talk my way out of that one and was made, by the store owner, to walk my coworker home.

In high school, I had two real good friends, who were brothers. We were going to go hangout at a girl’s house, but Mikey, the younger brother, said that he shouldn’t, as he had to be back home for dinner or he’d get into trouble. I blurted out some insane scenario where he could tell his mother that someone stole his sneakers and because he had to chase them he’d missed his bus and didn’t get home in time for dinner. I was trying to be amusing, I guess. Mikey did end up going with us to the girl’s house and when he said that it was time for him to go catch the bus, she jumped on his lap and her sister pulled his sneakers off an took off running…locking herself in her bedroom. By the time he got his sneakers back he had missed the bus that would’ve gotten him home on time.

During that same school year I had a much more ominous premonition come true, one that shook me to my core. Now mind you, during this time I was skipping more classes than I was making it too and was in ISS almost every day that I decided to actually show up to school. On this particular day, I decided to turn over a new leaf and go to all of my classes, even the ones that I didn’t like. So I found myself sitting in my math class, hoping like hell that the teacher wouldn’t call me up to the board to solve a problem, as I was completely clueless at this point. The teacher called another student up and as he walked by I blurted out in the lightest of whispers, “You’re going to die.” Now here is where I usually get weird looks from people when I recount this story, but I assure you—I did not wish him dead…I did not want him harmed in any way. I didn’t really know who he was as we didn’t associate. The words simply spilled from my mouth without a single thought. Well, the next day the school canceled all classes and as I walked the halls I just kept seeing groups of students huddled together crying. I learned that a student from my grade, while playing basketball at a local boy’s club, collapsed and died almost instantly from a burst valve in his heart. You guessed it—he was the student from my math class. I didn’t tell anyone about this, certainly not anyone that went to my school. I was afraid that I would be thought of as a lunatic, I became afraid that I might blurt out something similar to someone much closer to me, so I buried it. I stopped blurting things out off the top of my head and became much more reticent. I thought before I spoke and if something did pop into my head…I didn’t blurt it out. Eventually I stopped having the urge to blurt out, until a few days ago, while walking around at work.

Am I crazy? Do any of you believe in psychic powers? Have any of you had anything psychic happen to you? Help me feel a little less alone…