MY FRONT room has 122 hardwood planks that makeup the floor. It’s an exact count. Precise. Some planks in the collection have ripples, and all have the patina of wood that’s a hundred years old.

Dining room’s next. It was yesterday, and I was more than halfway through the inventory of floor planks there when the phone rang. Dratz.

It had been a difficult count because of the interruptions. I should have marked the planks that I’d counted to help me stay on target. The living room had taken a week and a half, and the dining room was going to be as big a problem. Why do I need this information? Who the heck knows.

The call was for a tarot reading, and they were happy to do everything by phone. It was my only business yesterday, and I was happy to get the work. She wanted to know about somebody her daughter was dating.

First came the Five of Pentacles crossed by the Four of Pentacles. Ick.

“Get a prenup,” I told her.

“He seems so lovely,” she said.

Then why the Sam Hill did you friggin’ call me, lady? I thought to myself.

“Yes ma’am,” I said into the phone, trying to make it sound like I was smiling pleasantly.

Yeouch. Can I file for Workman’s Compensation when I bite my tongue? I thought.

“What do you see?” she asked me with a kind of British accent. I don’t think it was an upperclass accent, more like something you’d find from a blue collar woman. I don’t even know if British workers have blue collars. Maybe I’ll be curious enough to look that up some day. Not.

“The cards say there’s something about treasure,” I told her. “There’s struggle combined with not sharing. It says stinginess is some kind of issue in there.”