5. A travelling fortune teller

"He could have done research on you before going to your office," I was sceptical that the travelling fortune teller (FT) could get 100% success from Tom, a 55-year-old gentleman who had seen all kinds of characters in his work as a general trader of 20 years. He had made fortunes and lost money. Con men and women populate his world of dealing and wheeling.

I was at Lot 1, McDonald's with Tom and Mrs Aung for a meeting with Richard, an old friend of Tom and a general trader with considerable experience of 30 years. Mrs Aung wanted to be a general trader too but she was a baby compared to these two and had not been successful in closing one commodity deal for over 24 months. I had known her for over 10 years as she was a vet graduated from Myanmar and had worked as a vet technician for other vets in Singapore. She gave up on veterinary work. No big bucks. No big commissions from one multi-million-dollar deals.

I advised her to network with experienced general traders. She was worried that they would by-pass her and played her out. "Getting played out or cheated is part and parcel of doing business," I always said to Mrs Aung. "Just be an employee if you worry." There was no going back for her as she wanted to be free from the chains of employment.

Learn from experienced traders. No books can teach you about the scams and back stabbing of businesses.

As for me, I was interested in what unusual phenomenon such men of the world had encountered. This evening, Tom told us his encounter with the FT. The FT asked him to accept 4 pieces of folded paper with words already written by the FT, separately in Tom's palms. Tom would answer 4 questions about his favorite colour, bird, flower and the 4-digit lottery number he bought last week. The FT would blow air onto Tom's palm. Tom would unroll the paper to read the answers.

Tom said "My answers of blue, parrot, rose and 8813 were what I said. The words were in the paper!"

What a cock-and-bull story I thought.
I kept an open mind.

"I hate parrots!" Tom said. "The FT must have a spirit who manipulated my mind to say 'parrot'". Except for 8813, Tom's mind was manipulated to say "blue" and "rose".

We had no comment.

What a tall tale, I would say if I did not know that Tom is a credible person. I remembered to ask one very important question. "Did the FT give you a 4-digit number to buy?" I don't buy 4-D at all as the handful occasions I did made me lose money. But no harm asking for the number. Tom had stopped recounting. I guessed the other 2 would not care 2 hoots about 4-D but my aged receptionist James do buy 4-Ds regularly. So I thought Tom would share the FT's predicted number. I could ask James to put a $2.00 bet for me.

"Sorry," Tom said. "The FT told me not to reveal the number to anyone." I usually don't give the time of day to travelling FTs. I will follow up on Tom's 4-D outcome. What an incredible story.

FOLLOW UP
The 4-Digit number failed Tom. "Well, Richard had said that the FT gave 20 people 4-D numbers and if one got lucky, the FT would visit him to claim some share."