Not everyone's a psychic, but some events can't be explained

A month before the Comedy Shrine opened, my daughter and I went to our favorite Chinese restaurant in Naperville. We got fortune cookies after the meal. My daughter's was pretty generic. Mine was not. My fortune said, "Your audience is waiting for you to build your stage."

My daughter had to read the fortune for herself because she thought I made it up. She still has that small slip of paper. Was it a coincidence or cosmic intervention?

Psychic phenomenon is common in my family. My cousin Annette predicted her ex-husband would go to jail two days before she turned state's evidence against him. My grandfather had a premonition that Kennedy would be shot. So what if it was George Kennedy, the actor. My Aunt Rose thought it rained whenever she had sad dreams. She'd wake up with tears running down her face, and sure enough there would be a downpour outside. No one had the heart to tell her the roof leaked above her bed.

Some of our supernatural encounters are harder to explain. My dad died when my brother and his wife were expecting their first child. That evening my brother dreamt of my dad holding a baby. He smiled and said, "I'm bringing you your baby." My brother's wife was five weeks away from giving birth. But sure enough, that next day she went into labor and their daughter was born premature.

When my brother's daughter was 4 years old she saw a photo of the grandfather she never met. She pointed to the picture and told her father, "I know that man." My brother knew she had no idea who he was; after all, he died before she was born. "Who is that?" my brother asked. "That's the man who brought me to you," she smiled.

I was walking home one beautiful summer night. It was after midnight. I'd just finished performing at The Second City. Two couples on two motorcycles slowly passed me on the street. They were laughing and talking. I thought to myself, "I should warn them." They slowly continued down Lincoln Avenue and I said nothing. I was tired and walking in a dream-like state as I pictured myself placing a blanket over a woman lying in the street. A twisted motorcycle was several feet behind her.

I walked four more blocks and there in front of Jukebox Saturday Night was the mangled motorcycle. A young girl lay in the street with a blanket covering her.

Psychics fascinate me. This weekend, I drove by an old, shabby house that really didn't fit in with its upscale rehabbed Chicago neighborhood. The lawn hadn't been mowed in years. Wildflowers mixed with untrimmed scrubs and oddly shaped bushes were surrounded by exotic lawn ornaments. A neon sign in the window read, "psychic." I had to stop.

I walked up to the small front porch. An elderly Chinese woman startled me when she opened the door. "You think I don't know you?" she laughed. "I'd like some information about my sister" I said. I was testing her. I have no sister. She laughed even harder. "Your mother said you were funny. She's very proud of the stage you built for your audience." The old woman closed the door.

My mother died two years before I even thought of opening a theater. Pretty weird, huh?

Reach Dave Sinker, a longtime Naperville resident and owner of the Comedy Shrine in downtown Naperville, at davidsinker@yahoo.com.