My super power

Listen to me. I tell you that I’m always wrong. I’m quite certain of this.

It’s not that I am a liar, no; I’m just a poor guesser. If it should so happen that you are talking with me and it turns out that I am right about something, then you can be reasonably confident that it is not me you’re talking with but rather someone else entirely.

I do not know with whom you are talking. If I were to harbor a guess, it would be wrong. Believe me, for I am known far and wide for my talent in this arena. It is my super power.

My sister called me today. She said, “Tell me he’s a Muslim.”

I said, “He’s a Muslim,” for I had no reason not to do as she said.

“Thank you!” she said and hung up.

The Baton Rouge shooting had only just come on the tv, you see, and my sister feared the shooter was a Muslim. Once I said that he was a Muslim, it acted as a sort of guarantee that he wasn’t. A buffer or a surety.

Like an experiment in quantum physics gone all mixed up. By my announcing the cat to be dead, we would surely open the box to find her alive.

And it worked!

Isn’t there something that you’d like me to guess wrong?