Yup. Sometimes I hate being right. It doesn’t happen often, but happen it does. And when it happens, when I hate being right, it’s usually because the universe has smacked me in the face with a wet fish and told me to wake up and start listening to myself. The last time I ignored my inner voice, it cost me my wallet.

Many many moons ago, I fell ill. No one knew quite what was wrong with me. I spent a couple of weeks in Cherry Orchard (built as a fever hospital and where contagious diseases and such were treated). Anyway, released with a clean bill of health and no diagnosis, I resorted to faith healers. On the advice of a friend (long since dead) I went to visit a nun in Drogheda who was a diviner. She told me that I was suffering from metal poisoning and that I should replace all my metal filings with porcelain ones, never wear jewellery around my neck or in my ears, and watch what I ate. For the latter, she told me to get myself a crystal and work with it. She warned me against using it for anything else though – sure that’d be against my religion.

I hightailed it to Temple Bar (before it was Temple Bar) to what was probably the only crystal shop in Dublin and I bought my crystal. I’d buy a second many years later in Palm Springs. And I usually carry one or the other with me.

I’m not asking you to believe what I believe or to do what I do – I’m simply telling you this for the sake of my story. I have a crystal and I use it regularly to find things or decide whether or not I should be worried about something or to see what is making me ill.

Late last year, I went through the mind-crippling experience of buying new glasses. I opted for two magnetic dots – one on each lens – to which I could attach my sunglasses. The sunglasses were cut to fit the frames and at around 27 000 ft, weren’t exactly off-the-shelf cheap. I last saw them on the 4th of January. I had lost the hard case they’d come in but had the glasses, now packed in a thin, soft, felt envelope. I didn’t need them for a week or so and it wasn’t until the 10th that I went looking for them. And they were nowhere to be found. Three of us spent an age turning over the flat. I’d already turn the house upside down to no avail. I checked shoes, bags, and coats. I looked in boxes, in presses, in drawers. I even checked the freezer having once found my car papers stuck to the bottom of a tub of ice-cream. I emptied bins, sifted through rubbish, double-checked the car.  But nothing. Nada. Nincs.

So I brought out my crystal.

It told me that my sunglasses were in my office on a shelf. I looked. And I looked. And I looked. I took down books. I lifted journals. I leafed through papers. Nothing. But it insisted.

I had a decision to make. My crystal said I should wait – they’d turn up. I was running out of time. I’d need them for February but wouldn’t be in town to get new ones unless I ordered them last week. I said aloud, on more than one occasion – The minute I get the new ones, the old ones will turn up. As I was passing the optician, I rang the lovely PE who comes to clean my flat once a week.

Did my glasses turn up? I asked.

Not a sign of them, she said.

And this from a woman who cleans out toasters and dusts between the radiator and the wall. They were gone.

So I dropped into the Opti, shelled out the money, and ordered a new pair. She’d have them tomorrow, she said. I was flying that afternoon but I’d live without them till I was back. But then she called, a couple of hours later, and said she had them. I went to pick them. Got back to the flat. Started packing for my flight. Went to take my screen cover for my laptop from the shelf beside my desk and what did I find? THE BLOODY GLASSES.

I was right. Not quite to the minute, but near enough not to matter. And I hated being right.

That was last week. It’s taken me this long to get over the bruises I got from kicking myself. I’m grateful for the reminder to be more patient, to listen to my inner voice (amplified by my crystal), and to be more mindful about where I put things in the first place.