A while back (years ago really) we featured a radio transcript of Tondaleo Breckinridge, a radio psychic who was quite popular for a local AM radio personality in that she was actually on the air. She has since left the air but still practices her “art”. We were going to do a profile and test reading with her, but she demurred and referred us to her sister, Congolia Breckenridge (like Ann Landers and Dear Abby they use different last names even though they are identical twin sisters so as not to trade off one another’s names, although of course, the psychic sisters probably don’t have the high profile of those 2 gossip and advice twins.
Anyway, we decided to do a “cold” reading with Congolia, which if you aren’t in the business means a reading before they rifle your purse and wallet and suss out anything they can to use as advance info. We just walked in off the street and paid our $50 and told her we wanted advice and guidance for the future and she said she could try that.
So we surreptitiously recorded the whole thing in case anything weird happened we’d get it on tape. This is a transcript.
/r&a
=dw
/Ok so tell me, what do you want to know, why are you interested or concerned about your life and future?
=Well I think everyone is, lots of things going on in my life and I just want to be prepared so I don’t make mistakes, you know…
/Ok that’s fair ok let me hold your hands, oh your hands are cold, are you cold?
==No your hands seem unnaturally warm, if anything?
/Oh I had my potbelly pig in my lap, he keeps me warms always, anyway I get a strong sense that you are someone who is interested in things, in life and love and all the things that make up your time
=Yes, I guess you could say that
/I see your life spinning out ahead of you, events happening, a lot of emotions and twists and turns, as well as just normal flow of events and everyday life, the whole quotidian thing
=Well that’s pretty general, can you get more precise?
/I’m not Kreskin over here, I see what I see, but like a detective I can deduce things from what I can see, that’s my main tools, my deductions and suspicions and life experience telling me what all this cosmic confusion might actually mean.
=Well ok so what do you deduce from life spinning events and.. what did you say?
/Well first off, we know you are alive in the future, you aren’t going to walk out of here and get hit by a bus or get cancer in the next, I don’t know, I don’t see it for years at least. So you are living and thriving. You’re not in prison, I can see that.
=How do you get that? Just interested..
/I see you have a lot of freedom, you don’t have to answer to anyone, you aren’t trapped in a routine, you sleep when you want, you eat when you want, you do what you want.
=So I’m unemployed and single.
/I think we can deduce that, sure, that’s the easiest interpretation. And that goes along with my feelling you are very very poor, isolated, alone, depressed and hopeless, so there’s that in the mix.
=Jeez these aren’t good things you’re telling me.
/You’re not in prison, that’s a positive, you’re not trapped in a bad job you hate or an abusive, loveless relationship where you have to, I don’t know, kill someone to get out your nightmare.
=I might have to rob a place.
/You might. Do yo have a gun?
=No I was just…
/I’m looking ahead and if you do go that way, you’re very good at it, at least in the sense that I don’t see you dead or anyone’s “bitch”.
=So I’m not in prison because if I were, I’d be someone’s bitch?
/Well, look at you, you have very girlish ways about you, sure I can’t see you as anything _but_ a bitch, and you know it’s not a bad way to go, there’s a lot of positives, if you do have to be in prison, you are protected, you get to cook and wash things out, keep busy, there’s intense sex, I’m told, free tattoos, cigarettes..
=Actually I don’t think you can smoke in jail anymore, they outlawed that
/Well how do they put a price on a bitch then? That seems unfair and odd and bad for jail economics, jail commerce.
=I”m not sure, I think there are still a lot of drugs in jail.
/So there’s drugs but no cigarettes?
=Well I’m sure you can get them but it’s no longer the currency, they are no longer on the cigarette standard, I’m not sure what the basic unit is, maybe opioids? Headshots?
/Head jobs?
=No headshots, you know everyone is prison has either a reality show or a miniseries or series, they are all writing, Netfilx will buy anything and jail and prison is big.
/Well head jobs would be hard to quantify anyway so maybe you’re right. I have a screenplay, it’s not about prison, well I could put some in if you think that would help.
=A screenplay about a psychic, that sounds kind of interesting.
/No it’s about a pet shelter, a lady who takes in pets people don’t want anymore and takes care of them and all the characters, the dogs, they are mostly dogs, all have different personallities and they get up to all kinds of adventures and there’s drama and pathos, when one of them passes away, and there’s love of course and romance.
=Hmm how does your psychic work figure into that? Or does it at all
/No, but it might, I mean I don’t know where it will lead, I just write I very rarely think ahead where the thing is going I just let it flow.
=So you don’t have a plan or foresee any kind of plot outline in advance on your writing?
/No, I can’t really write like that, I have a hard time visualizing, you know, things in advance.
=Hmm ok. Well, that’s, anyway. I’m in the filmmaking business you know.
/No really? Are you? I would never have guessed that.
=You wouldn’t.
/No you don’t seem that type at all. You don’t put off that vibe.
=I don’t?
/No and how you’re dressed, well I don’t like to make assumptions about people.
=But that’s your whole, you know, you’re raison d’
/My raisen?
=Never mind, I’m just saying if you ran some of your ideas by me I could tell you if I think your ideas are marketable, if there’s a future for what you’re working on…
/Oh I don’t really care about that but sure my first one was about setting up the shelter and how the lady got into it, kind of backhandedly, I never would have thought this would happen to me, someone left me their dogs when they had to move unexpectedly.
=Oh so this is autobiographical?
/Well you have to write what you know. That’s why the pet shelter, I know dogs, I know unhappy dogs, happy dogs, their stories, their lives, their loves and even, sometimes, their deaths, yeah.
=But ok, so you write what you know, you know the psychic work, you know that, it just seems like a more fertile field for plots and stories of interest.
/Oh well I don’t really do that, my sister does that. She just knew I needed to pay my water bill this month and she referred you to me, I mean, I’ve seen what she does, I can do that.
=We haven’t really covered much about my future at all, I guess that all makes sense.
/Well the sign says, “Reader and Advisor”, I read you and I advise you, like I told you, I see you doing ok, basically like you are now, just your normal life, nothing out of the ordinary, but nothing ordinary either, very unique. Like I said I see you as a free person, not concerned with keeping appointments or living up to promises or following through on what you say you are going to do, unfettered by ideas of honor or honesty or reputation, nothing like that.
=I don’t know where you are getting this.
/You haven’t paid me my $50 for one thing.
=Ok ok here, here is your $50.
/We’ve run up against your 30 minutes, we need another $50 if you’d like to continue this.
=Continue, what really?
/Well I’ve done the reading part but I haven’t really advised you yet, the advising part of it
=Advising me? But what you’ve read about me, I don’t see how you could…
/I’m sorry I need the other $50 if we’re going on with this
=Ok here’s $100 but let’s move it along, ok?
/All right so we’ve talked about your personality and where it is going to take you, you mentioned not working, making a life of crime which fits right in with my no responsibilities, no honor or honesty, lack of reputation so while I don’t see you dead or in prison maybe that’s a result of continual vigilance, I would advise vigilance. Just because I don’t see it doesn’t mean it won’t happen. I’m not a mind reader or a Copernicus or whoever. I just say what I think.
=So your advise on my future is to be vigilant
/That really works for any career, crime or any. I have to be vigilant with my dogs. They tear stuff up, they would all mate with whoever, the ones who aren’t fixed yet.
=You can never be vigilant enough.
/That’s my advise. We can go on, finish out the half-hour but it would just be repetitious, I see you as a very successful life of crime and not dead or imprisoned, but if you are imprisoned, you do quite well there as well with your cooking and cleaning and other wifely duties.
=But be vigilant
/You can never be vigilant enough.