Table Tipping

Word Count: 539

“Go before me,” Victoria tells her friend after three of her other friends have already ordered their ice creams.

How is she supposed to choose when there are so many options? Does she go with classic cookie dough or does she want a fruity sorbet? Don’t forget the peanut butter swirl with pretzel bites in it. This is a life or death decision. Victoria is never going to have ice cream again. Ever.

Okay, maybe she won’t have it until next week.

Now, Victoria can’t even pick an ice cream flavor with ease; can anyone really expect her to pick a college major? Since her junior year of high school, she has been contemplating her college major. Considering everything from Psychology to Theater to Communications to Advertising, she’s currently landed on double majoring in Theater and Journalism and Media Studies. She finally feels safe in her decision. She could become a filmmaker or work in advertising or write for a magazine. Very randomly and very suddenly, she realized wow, I potentially want to be a lawyer. I want to work on domestic cases. She had a quick conversation with her parents about it, but taking a Pre-Law track was a fresh idea, and since Pre-Law doesn’t require specific classes and she just needs to take the LSAT in three years to get into Law School, no drastic changes in her life had to be made just yet.

A week later, Victoria and her family went on vacation. While there, her mother and she went table tipping. No, table tipping is not going to a field of tables and scaring the inanimate object until it falls. It actually may seem a little crazier than that. Table tipping is a form of mediumship to the spiritual world in which the table acts as the medium. A group of people will put their hands around a table, one will say a prayer to request only the highest of spirits to come through (no one wants anyone evil coming into the table). Then, the energy of either a deceased loved one or spiritual guide will come through into the table, communicating by tipping the table once to answer “yes” or twice for “no” in response to questions. For longer responses, the spirit will spell out words, tipping once for “A”, twice for “B”, three times for “C”, etc.

Victoria’s grandfather came through for her. To settle her nerves, she started with some light conversation. Afterall, speaking through a table to her two years late grandfather wasn’t the most comprehensible concept. After easing herself into the new territory, she asked him the biggest question in my life right now: “What should I be studying?” The table tipped. Tip A, tip B, tip C, tip D…. tip J, tip K, and finally, tip L.

“Law?” she asked.

Tip once for yes.

Any skepticism Victoria had towards table tipping went straight out the window. The idea of law school was fresh in her mind. It was so specific and new that his response couldn’t be feigned. Her deceased grandfather had literally just told her to study law. How could she deny her path in life now?

Don’t be fooled. She still doesn’t know what she’s doing.