Will Shoot Pool for Egg Sandwiches

Anyone who says money can’t buy happiness has never been very hungry.

Many of you know this, or are close to someone who knows this, from firsthand experience. Perhaps one can’t simply walk to the market and purchase happiness. “Say, my good man, I’d like to see your selection of smiles and goodwill this fine day!”

But you can sure as hell buy a loaf of bread and some peanut butter. And to a hungry person, that’s as close as you can get.

I mention this because there was a time, more recently than I’d like to admit, that the hungry person was me. Not so much in that I was unfortunate, but unwise. There were other things that demanded the bulk of my earnings, such as rent, utilities, gas, overdraft fees…and of course, a certain drink that starts with an “R” and hilariously rhymes with “bum.”

I’m thankful to say that those days are fading into old memory, the way a real zinger of a nightmare does when exposed to the light of day, and those thanks are largely owed to the two jobs that keep me in the money and out of trouble.

It’s also thanks in part to the fact that I’m a cheating bastard.

I was always good at pool. No master, by any means, but above average. I carry my own cue when I go to dive bars. I bitch when there’s no chalk around. It’s rare I can find someone who bests me more than half the time.

The first few games I played after discovering my power, I didn’t cheat. It may or may not be boasting to say that it wasn’t necessary. Then I played some overlarge frat boy, one of those you see strutting around in pink polo shirts, named Kyle or Kelly or something along those lines. He was an okay shot, but my lead was strong, one ball to the eight when he still had four.

I turned around to grab my drink (let the Captain take the wheel, so to speak) and saw him, out of the corner of my eye, pot one of his balls by hand.

This got my drunken blood to boiling, so I decided at that moment that turnabout was fair play. We played five more games, twenty dollars per game, and I walked home with an extra hundred dollars.

It wasn’t so hard to cheat undetected. Give the cue ball a little push sideways as it rolls to the target ball. Put the brakes on his nine a little short of the pocket. Nudge my four when it comes up just a bit shy.

After that night, I’m sorry to say that the temptation to employ my talent this way was simply too great to ignore.

I pick out similar types – loudmouth kids with more alcohol in their bloodstream than sense in their heads, and if they have a pretty little college girl nearby they’re trying to impress, so much the better. A couple hours hitting up the dive bars downtown can net me three or four hundred dollars, so long as I’m careful to play small stakes and not stay in one place too long.

I try all sorts of ways to rationalize this venture to myself. I needed the money, true. I’m simply using what God or Allah or the Flying Spaghetti Monster gave me, true. Asking me to stop would be like asking a wide receiver who was particularly fast to slow down so the defense would have a chance at catching him.

Right?

Instead of gesundheit? Shocked silence.

I know, I know. It’s been a while since I last posted. Things have been a little crazy, but rest assured, I’m still alive and well, and as of yet not been bundled off to some government lab to be shocked, prodded, questioned, and cut up in the name of science.

If you’re new to my blog (rawr!), that may have not made a lot of sense to you, so you may want to scroll down a bit and start at the beginning.

Done? Alright, now that we’re on the same page, I can go on.

It’s been a little over two months since I discovered I was telekinetic, and it’s amazing how quickly it became…mundane. It’s like being able to taste, or see. It’s become so integrated in my everyday life that I take it for granted. When I’m alone or reasonably certain no one will see, I hardly ever move things by hand anymore.

Because of this, so many of life’s tiny inconveniences simply don’t exist for me anymore. Ever get in the shower before getting the temperature right? No need to suffer the water, I can just give the knob a little twist from the safety of the other side. Want the passenger side window cranked down without risking a car wreck? That one is easy; I don’t even have to look at it anymore.

That being said, the power isn’t exactly under complete control.

Sneezing sometimes causes that little brain-muscle (as I’ve come to think of it) to flex involuntarily. Usually this manifests in a little arc in front of me, scattering small objects, but if I happen to be touching something as I sneeze, it gets hurled…sometimes in a random direction, but usually straight at me. After a close call with a steak knife I decided to keep the mental handling of dangerous objects to a minimum.

Also, I know I move things in my sleep – a webcam recording settled that suspicion with a quickness. I had woken up several times with that mild headache that usually follows a good workout, with my things misplaced.

It seems that I’m much stronger in my sleep. Awake, I can sustain one small object in the air, maybe two. But in the video, at times I had six or seven things floating around the room in nonsensical patterns. Ghost hunters would have a stroke over the footage. At one point, I even had my office chair lifted a few feet off the ground, by far the heaviest object I’ve managed so far.

I have to wonder if this is more of a cognitive limitation, as opposed to strength. Maybe the mass of an object doesn’t mean as much for this ability as I think it should. Either way, I haven’t been able to duplicate these feats awake.

Wish me luck – I’m off to work, and I have the sniffles.