Of All The Stranger-Than-Strange Things to Happen At A Wedding, The "Write Insights" Is Pretty Strange

Out of all the events that took place over Christmas, the strangest, at least to the casual observer, is the fact that one of my aunts got married in the basement of my mom's house in Illinois. Why the basement, you ask? Naturally, she wanted my Grandma, who lives there, to attend. Why does my grandma live in the basement of my mom's house? Well, it's technically not the basement, more like the lower level of a tri-level. But to me, it's down, and anything down is basement. It's not like we have Grandma chained to a cold lead pipe, shivering and surrounded by cat poo. She has her own bathroom and fireplace. She also is pool adjacent, which, I admit, is not of much use when the temperature is hovering around, oh, say, ten below zero. But posh, no?

A word on the cold in the Chicago area, which is so severe, it makes my teeth hurt. Ever been that cold? I don't advise it.

But stranger than even attending a wedding in the lower-rec-room-basement floor of my mom's house was that at the reception, I sat at a table with a man who analyzes handwriting to discover personality, temperament, and quirks. I AM NOT JOKING. He looks at it and sees things, but is quick to correct misperceptions such as my niece Beyonce voiced: "Are you a psychic?" He is not. Nor does he see dead people. He is just a guy who knows that the loop in your y really means that you are either a go-getter on the verge of making it big or gearing up to be the next Jeffrey Dahmer. If any of our y's gave us away, though, our handwriting guru kindly kept that information to himself. But he now knows who to avoid for, basically, ever.

Anyway, he went though my friends Diana and Chris, nailing both of them, through my mom, Beyonce, Russell, and me. I now know things that no one should ever have to know about people seated with them at a wedding reception, no matter how close they are. You might be wondering at this point how well our handwriting guy knew all of us. Answer: Not well. Some, he was meeting and speaking to for the first time. And yet, when it came down to the writing, there we were, apparently, butt naked on paper. I don't know how he got so much out six different versions of "I am truly happy to be here today" and a signature. But he read us all in the most amazing and strange way -- I remember that he said my mom is the bigger influence on me, that I am impatient (the way I write my "r" shows that, somehow), and that I am extremely efficient and planned-out. In other words, I should be planning your next big event.

If you are interested in being fully known (in the handwriting sense) by a relative stranger, I am including a link to Dale Roberts' website, Write Insights. It is truly amazing. I would advise it over marital counseling any day. For a fee, he has you send him samples of your handwriting and then, goes about telling you how your handwriting can or will wreck your career, relationships, or chance of winning Wheel of Fortune.

Go on, do it. You have nothing to lose but any chance of ever sustaining the illusions that keep you sane.