Ancient times had prophets.

According to the Bible, Pyramids, and maybe even something that wasn’t made up, prophets were just everywhere in ancient times. Nostradamus. Moses. Tarzan. They predicted the future… and the future followed, if it knew what was good for it.

But since then, we’ve lost our way.

Edgar Cayce? Gave way to the Psychic Friends Network. Or people that took too much Ambien. People that could predict the future were replaced by charlatans simply making crap up. (I know. I know. – John)

But there has to be a way around this. We need psychics today.

If you look back at the people who predicted the future in the past, you’ll notice they almost all had one thing in common: If they were alive today, they’d be diagnosed with serious mental problems.

And not just because they’d be like, centuries old or something. Nostradamus most likely had autism. Moses had body odor that wiped out at least an entire phalanx of Corinthians. Edgar Cayce was emo.

So… if crazy people were the key to predicting the future in the past, don’t we have some nearby crazy people here in the present to predict our future? (or, just to teach us proper grammar?)

On the hunt for crazy people (and studiously avoiding awkward questions of “Is This a Good Idea?”) we reflected on our good fortune to live in a bad part of town. We also reflected that that’s the first time we ever reflected on that being a good thing.

Homeless people are just like everybody else, except they don’t have a home, smell like eggs mixed with death, and react to the sight of money like a zombie who just got out of brain rehab. After a few interactions with homeless people that ran the gamut from “terrifying” to “You Can’t Get a Disease From Just Talking to Someone, Right?” we happened upon a kindly old man we’ll refer to as “Purple Box,” because “Unidentified Grunt-Man” is too hard to type, and makes us feel like we’re jumping the gun on some future Mega Man villain.

He lived in a large, Sony purple box, hence our profoundly creative name. Emmett asked what Sony sells that comes in a purple box, John merely muttered something about “we need real jobs.”

We do what we do with every homeless person: not give them money. After that, we asked him a serious of questions about what would happen in the next week. He gave us a few answers that we cleaned up after they dribbled out of his mouth. Nothing in that sentence was a metaphor: he answered our questions as purple goop dripped out of his mouth. Don’t ever say we didn’t suffer for you. And I’m sorry about your meal, hopefully you’ll get your appetite back soon.

1ST PREDICTION FOR NEXT WEEK:

America will fall into a depression.

Not just financially, an actual “depression.” Much of America will put on black, and not just because it’s kinda slimming and we’re all a little heavy anymore. President Obama will realize (correctly) that the country is so depressed after the Groundhog Saw it’s shadow.

With no hope of looking forward to a rodent-like creature being able to predict the weather, he immediately orders the creation of “Leonardo The leprechaun.” When asked why the leprechaun had an Italian name, the press was greeted with the Presidential proclamation of: “Shut up.” (Which, when Obama speaks, is the phrase “Let Me Be Clear.”)

If Lenny sees his shadow in the alcohol someone spills next to him, there’s maybe three more weeks of winter, and maybe like, half an hour till someone passes out. But be up for St. Patrick’s day, one of the few holidays to stick to it’s ancient traditions of alcohol and dwarf tossing.

2ND PREDICTION: CELEBRITY NEWS.

(Purple Box seemed especially ecstatic about this. The purple goop flew from his mouth, making us wonder, and not for the first time, if he was an alien. A bit landed on John’s shirt, and he immediately ripped his shirt off, deciding that nudity was the better part of “That Crap Is Eating a Hole Through My Shirt.”)

This week, Professional Boobs-Haver Tila Tequila called cops to her house when she said she saw a “psycho stalker” on her property. But, upon investigation, the only thing the cops could find was their own embarrassment at being in Tila’s house.

NEXT WEEK, she’ll call the cops again, saying: “A deranged fame-whore with no talent that extends beyond the silicon attached to her chest is in my house!” The cops will arrive, and arrest the real culprit… her mirror.

(At this point, we looked at Purple Box to see if he was being funny, or ironic, but he just nodded, as more purple goop dribbled off his lip. It was like this guy went to McDonalds, threw down with Grimace, then left the purple beast alive, eating his arm and part of his hip in victory.)

3RD PREDICTION: BARBIE.

The three of us backed away, not wanting to know what this figure was going to do with a Barbie doll. John muttered that “real jobs” thing again. But Purple Box told us:

There’s a contest this week to give Barbie a new career, i.e. (yes, homeless folks are aware of the i.e., apparently) put her in a new dress, and get little girls to fork over more money, for “Book of Eli Barbie, With Radical Twist Ending Hair” or something. Voting goes on for what new job to give Barbie. Currently, “surgeon” is in the lead.

NEXT WEEK: the winner will be announced. In a surprise landslide, her new job will be: “Amazon Warrior to Fight Your Brother’s G.I. Joe’s.” Not only will this lead to a lot of uncomfortable moments, (“I’m sorry, Ken. I can’t go to the movies in your oddly colored car, because COBRA MUST PAY”) but it will give young boys their own vision of the future, when women have more education and are pretty much in charge of everything.

At this point, we asked him more predictions about the future, but he climbed into his box. If you’ve ever tried to have a conversation with someone in a box, you know that you end it quickly… as soon as you realize you’re talking to someone who’d rather be in a box than talk to you. Sufficiently daunted, we went home, debating the whole time who was going to shower first.

PROPHECY RATINGS:

ON A SCALE FROM “1” TO “NOSTRADAMUS” HOW PSYCHIC WAS THIS HOMELESS PERSON?
This man rated a Sir Walter Meadev, a Belgian psychic in the 8th century. He once famously said that “Fires Will Engulf the Land!” leading to widespread panic . Unfortunately, he misread one of the letters, and accidentally burned his hand off in a waffle press.

WOULD YOU TALK TO THIS PSYCHIC AGAIN?
Not without my shots.

And finally:
HOW IN-TUNE WITH THE POWERS WE CANNOT SEE WAS HE?
… according to the change we had on us, about $3 worth of in-tune with powers we cannot see, but that’s largely because he could break John’s five.

One prediction we can comfortably make is that we’ll have more and better psychics/prophecies in the future. Until then, remember: when you look into the future, the future looks back at you and says: “Man… why did I eat all that horrible stuff in the past?”