"Stop walking like that!"

People are walking funny in the Chinese restaurant and it's freaking me out. Waiters in uniform marching backwards in a line, one slow step at a time. A young girl doing a step-slide all the way to the restroom. An old lady taking one l-o-n-g step followed by three baby steps on her way to the cash register. This restaurant went out of business in the 90's but is still a popular stopover for travelers. And they have some of the best soup dumplings outside of Hong Kong. But it takes a lot to keep its reality from fading away, and people resort to silly superstitions when they feel powerless.

Do some research people! Nothing will stabilize this place more than stealing cups and silverware from other restaurants and leaving them here. That's the way to add the psychic weight it needs. With a clatter, I dump out the pilfered contents of my purse onto the table, plastic soup spoons and ceramic teacups spilling onto the floor.

It's always hard to figure out how you're supposed to tip in a place like this.

"Put that gnome down NOW!"

The preschoolers get so riled up we need to take them outside even when the weather gets bad, and some of them still can't tell the difference between a late-season apple laying in the wet grass and a gnome. We spend plenty of time on Wee Folk identification in the classroom, but since we're only allowed to use pictures a lot of the youngest don't always get it. Nothing better than a stiff bite on a finger to give them a lesson, but the some of parents are heavy with the stink eye when they see the little bandaids at pick up time. My lack of compassion makes me wonder if I'm really cut out for early childhood psychic ed, and maybe I shouldn't have decided on a career path so early?

"Turn the damn electronics on!"

That wasn't me, but a woman I saw on the street, screaming at her hand. When people get their psychic utilities shut off it can be really sad. Shut down your water, shut down your electricity, your phone, get evicted... but when they turn off the telepathy and access to the World-Mind it's real rough. How is that even legal? Isn't it some basic "entity right" to be connected to the Infinite Data Bank? I suppose people could mess with the controls - the really deep ones - and lock themselves out, then freak out and lose it. Get cut off that deep and it can be almost impossible to get a tech in there to fix things up. You end up with nothing but static and echoes, seeing things that aren't there, yelling at your hand.

"Hey! Get some shirts on those eggs!"

Years of student teaching at Alchemical Day School have left me with very little patience for amateurs. Let those eggs get too cold running around with no pants on and you'll never extract the fifth element. Then you're going to deal with the hermaphrodites making a racket, fighting or making each other cry, or the dragons getting edgy and starting to bite. And there's always something for them to knock over, whether it's the alembic or the show globe or whatever. It's ok for making a little extra money on work-study, but shoot me if I end up trying to make a career out of it.

"No! Do NOT eat those crackers!"

I can't believe people picking things up off the psyhigh street - chicken and meat - to eat! Don't eat stuff off the sidewalk. Don't eat stuff out of the garbage either! You know what'll happen to you?

First of all, it's mostly the crows'. They drop it there to see who picks it up and then they follow you home. And if you put it inside you that's even worse because they'll get inside your dreams and make you do crow things.

"You! No pee on unicorn!"

Sheesh. I don't even know what language these kids speak. Guess I shouldn't have come to the Mythopoeic Zoo on free day, but I suppose it's nice for families to have a place like this to come to. I'm sure some of these kids didn't come with parents though - they're far too young and unruly to be out alone. Roving bands of Lost Children, escaped from their Children's Circle, or bunches of rich Swiss or Austrian kids who obviously paid off their servants for an afternoon lark. There's what seems to be a gang of orphans who slipped through a portal from some garbage heap in Managua - it's them I flip a couple of bucks to buy some popcorn or a coke.