Mercury Retrograde Reminiscence
This was a long time ago. Old girlfriend. Details might be lost in the folds of time and faulty memory. As I recall, it was at the old hotel in Corpus Christi, TX. Would make it a winter show, best guess, and the numbers might check out.
At the time, I was using a small, portable cassette recorder, part of what was offered with a then $20 reading. I also took credit cards, the old way, carrying a handful of carbon receipts and making a manual imprint, unwilling to tote a knuckle-buster, and the terminal all had to be tied a landline. I wouldn’t process the cards until I got back to the old trailer park.
That’s really OG?
Whatever. At those shows, I would do a bit of a lecture, more an astrological dog-and-pony thing, but easily early testing grounds for Bare Foot Astrology. While I was up, away from my table, the girlfriend sat in, supposedly to book readings, but she was a go-getter, so, she wound up doing a card reading while I was out.
There are several lessons, about Mercury in Retrograde, to be learned from this experience, this recollection.
The first one was the promoter, loved that woman, she was easy to work with. Work for. Work with. “This isn’t a democracy, this is a dictatorship.” I imagine, a benign ruler, but iron-fist, as one might expect. She was a final arbiter, but it was her ass on the line, so I was good with that. I subcontract a table space from her.
A table space for one reader, as it turned out, and letting my girlfriend do a reading while I was away, that pissed off other readers, shit flows down hill, and I was reprimanded. Reminded that it was one reader per table, that was implied in the terms. Kind of a slow show, so while I was away, and the girlfriend getting a paying client, must’ve raised some other reader’s ire.
So much for white light bunnies.
Mercury Retrograde Reminiscence
This recollection goes much deeper, though. I handed over $20 cash to the girlfriend but she had to take a credit card, so she handed me the manual imprint, then I process the charge, waiting for the funds to clear, minus fees. Think I usually netted about $18 and change, per $20. Girlfriend was sleeping with me, so I didn’t have much room to complain, at the time.
Never mind the way this doesn’t add up, just yet, it gets worse. The portable cassette recorder, and the special 20-minute tapes I used? Perfect to work as a timing element in a reading, and she used a cassette, and the recorder, handing over my business card with her reading, but she had started with the disclaimer, “I’m not sure I’m doing this right, and it might not work.”
An easy guess? Girlfriend didn’t record the reading, and the client wanted a recording, that was part of the selling point, but despite the warning? “This might not work, I have no idea,” despite the warning? I get a call, about three days after the show, message on the voice mail, a thoroughly irate person in Corpus Christi, upset that the tape was blank. Out $20 and the tape was blank! The nerve! The threat included protesting the credit card charge, since the tape was blank, and the client didn’t get what she wanted.
So the promoter was pissed off. The girlfriend pocketed her cash. The client was pissed off. The threat of protesting the credit card charge never happened, but that loomed over me for a few weeks, worried how it might impact my early merchant account.
What I’ve learned? Don’t do business with girlfriends. I wouldn’t do business with family, either, but that’s separate. Then check, and to this day, when a client asks if he or she can record the reading, as well as me? I encourage it because, well, technology.
Finally, make sure that everything is understood, at the beginning. I record the readings as a service, but reliability is not guaranteed. Then, too, I don’t charge for my predictions, I charge for my time.
A few years back, I toyed with numerous credit card/payment gateways. I like the simplicity of what I have now. I don’t have to keep records of transactions. That’s sits with the processing gateway, whichever one I’m using. In other words? I no longer handle credit card numbers. At all. Nothing is stored locally.
Mercury Retrograde Reminiscence
It’s been a long road and the promoters have gotten more litigious — rightfully so. The terms are more clear, a little more than a handshake operation, which is what I was used to.
Mercury in its retrograde pattern brings up memories, and also reminds us of previous errors so we don’t have to repeat them — again.
Mercury is Retrograde May 10 to June 3, starting in Gemini but sinking back to the late degrees of Taurus.
the Portable Mercury Retrograde
Portable Mercury Retrograde – Kramer Wetzel
Portable Mercury Retrograde: astrofish.net’s Mercury in Retrograde
