At approximately 2:50pm EST, as the students of Carter Middle School filed out to carpool, fourteen-year-old and avid horoscope follower Melanie Walden told her besties that her horoscope totally didn’t get her anymore. “It used to be like perfect,” she told them, smacking her gum while scuffing her tan Ugg boots on the sidewalk. “Seventeen Magazine said that an Aquarius is like shy and quiet and eccentric and energetic and that’s totally me! But today, Timmy didn’t even sit next to me in Social Studies. Today was supposed to be my lucky day because Mars was like circling the sun or something. I mean, how can Timmy diss me like that on my lucky day?”
This outrageous betrayal brought looks of horror to the faces of Walden’s surprised young friends, also believers in the art of astrology. Seeing their existential fear that life no longer had meaning or guidance, Walden revealed that she had found a replacement for the direction that the stars had provided them for like ever, in a Magic Eight Ball. “So now it’s like yes or no or maybe every time! So much easier! And I can ask it if Timmy will ask me to the Winter Dance over and over until it says yes!”
