I knew I was in trouble the moment she said, "Are you busy Sunday?"

Mrs. Anthony rarely asks me this sort of loaded question.

When she does, I can expect an unusual request to follow.

"What," I grumble, "do you have in mind, exactly?"

She stands in front of me with a load of fresh laundry clutched to her chest, her knees slightly turned in, the posture of a wife who needs a favor.

"I just thought you might want to go down to the Psychic Fair with me and have a reading done," she says brightly.

Mrs. A had coaxed me into attending one of these events years prior and my lack of instant enthusiasm was showing.

At that time, a million years ago, we were dating and in the interest of keeping her interested, I was a much more suggestible person.

Now that I've hardened to all sorts of fun things like flower shows, George Clooney movies and exercise equipment, it was easy for me to decline, at first.

"But my friend the astrologer will be there," she pined as she dropped the laundry in the basket and draped her long arms around my neck.

I'm a weak man when it comes to this kind of personal negotiation tactic and I caved instantly.

Fortunately, this particular Fair was close to home and the admission fee was only five bucks per reading.

At the previous Fair I got roped into, the psychics must have known I was coming. They lightened my wallet by about 100 bones by the time we schlepped out the door with some incense, personal rune stones and a "kirlian aura" photograph in hand.

But at least they had some style.

One standout was "Cassandra," a large white-haired grandmotherly type who took one look at me and the wife and said, "Yer gonna have twins!..yep, yep," she said, swaying her head from side to side, eyes closed.

"Runs in yer family..long, prosperous life, lotsa kids...that'll be $15."

The next lady we ran into there was a past life regression expert. She had some little shiny rocks she called "rune stones" and she moved them around with her long, elaborate jewelry-adorned fingers and told me, " You were a doctor...in Africa," she did the same closed-eye, head roll and included, "you worked with monkeys and blood."

This was about the time that AIDS was on the front page of the paper nearly every day, so the connection seemed a bit dubious.

I forked over another fifteen bucks and we moved to the last booth, a "kirlian photographer."

This is a deal where you give them ten dollars and a grumpy looking guy has you sit in front of a white screen where he takes a picture of you with a big box-style camera complete with a big black cape that covers the whole unit, him included.

You have no idea what he is doing, unless you happen to notice the box at his feet where he deftly exchanges colored gels between subjects.

I heard him snap a gel into the frame in front of the lens, looking like a confused grim reaper getting dressed in the morning.

"He says, " Ok...SMILE!" and he clicks the shutter.

It's a polaroid insta-matic and the picture pops out the side of the shrouded set-up.

He grabs the picture and hands it to his girlfriend/assistant who does a mini-reading of the result.

"Ohhh...you have a very cool disposition," she says wide-eyed as she hands me the print. It's me alright, except I have a big bluish halo around my head. The same thing happens for Mrs. A, except the grim photographer has installed a red gel this time.

The assistant proclaims her to have "a fiery personality," and we shuffle off to buy some incense.

In all, this is a harmless kind of diversion.

No worse than going to a casino or carnival, although I would have enjoyed trying to guess Cassandra's weight. (Next week - Part 2)