Apocalypse No

A little over a year ago, my old man and my uncle Ivan let a couple of female transients stay over at our apartment for a couple of nights. One of them, named Katie, was a Tarot-card-reading, magic-loving schizophrenic who, as she informed my Uncle David, died twice ON THE MOON. She was cool. She knew Harry Houdini's real name and was absolutely delighted when she found out that I did too. She claimed that he was in the living room with us, and that he wanted me to buy a 1.75-liter bottle of rum and share it with her and her traveling companion (Margaret, I think her name was). As epic as a night of drunkenness with a schizoid transient and her eerily quiet friend undoubtedly would have been, I had to decline Mr. Houdini's request due to a lack of funds.

Katie informed me that she had been drawn to Las Vegas because God told her that she was supposed to meet and marry magician Criss Angel (whose magical powers, she assured me, were real). A couple of days earlier, she had managed to find his house and leave him a note in his mailbox before being chased out of the gated community by security guards. She was confident that he would read her note and find her, though.

Katie also explained to me that the end of the world was coming soon, and that my dad and my uncles were going to be "feet" in the coming kingdom. Then she totally blew my mind. She told me that, as awesome as my father and uncles were, I was greater than they. Wow, right? But yeah, really. She said that I was destined to marry Ruth, the woman from the Old Testament, and that in the coming kingdom I would be both a foot and...A HAND! Awesome! I had no idea what that meant, but she assured me that it was a VERY good thing. Also, through her, God told me directly not to "hit on" his "daughter" (Katie) like "the others" (my uncles) did. Even though she was actually an attractive young woman, I had no difficulty complying with this divine edict--it must have been a powerful gift of grace that gave me such restraint. She believed that God had led her to us because she, Margaret, my dad, my uncles, Criss Angel and I were all supposed to go to the Indian reservation in Arizona and wait for "the bombs to drop." This, she explained, would happen sometime in October of 2012. Well, I had forgotten about it until today. Obviously, the end of the world thing didn't happen as promised. I'm not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. On the one hand, the world wasn't destroyed. On the other hand, I'm not going to marry a biblical saint and become a hand and a foot in the New Kingdom. I can't seem to catch a break.