Horoscope 101
Lademen and Gentlies and children of all ages, The Imfallible Horoscope is now a centenarian! For this very week marks the 101st time my astrological musings have besmirched the fair pages of The Peak. A milestone of this magnitude can’t be permitted to pass without a decent fit of self-aggrandisement on my part, so here it is... an erudite exposé of The Imfallible Horoscope, past, present and future!
The Past.
The history of The Imfallible Horoscope is a long and interesting one, at least to me. It originally appeared in The Peak back in January 1994, with the simple yet misleading title Horoscope. It ran for a year and a half—55 consecutive issues.
Then it all abruptly came to an end, as flames of controversy engulfed The Peak in June 1995 and I resigned from the paper in protest. The whole story is far too complex and unpleasant to go into here, although I will reveal that my involvement in the whipping of scantily-clad women was a factor. Ahhh, it was an interesting time to be alive.
And so I was gone, and SFU was left to languish without its horoscope for two and a half years. It was a sad, dark time for me, being cut off from The Peak—my joie de vivre, my raison d’être, my post-pubescent placenta which connected me to all things worthwhile in life. I shivered in a small mud hut I built in my Louis Riel apartment, breathing small scraps of stale oxygen I had scrounged from dumpsters for my subsistence.
But then, as the clock struck twelve on the last eve of 1997, I had an epiphany. “Glen—” it said to me (for this was a talking epiphany), “return to The Peak.”
“Okay,” I said. It was a very short epiphany.
Thus, when 1998 dawned on The Peak my horoscope was back for a second run, this time with the name The Imfallible Horoscope and an improved look. And so it has run for another 45 consecutive issues, bringing the total as of last week to 100. Three digits! Yippee!
The Present.
After 100 horoscopes, you’d think I’d have a bit of a following around here. And I do. But, and I say this with a great deal of love, my fans have got to be the most apathetic bunch of lead-arsed twits ever assembled in the history of fandom.
I know my fans exist, you see, through unverified second- and third-hand reports, not to mention that I compulsively spy on people I see reading the column around campus. But they never, ever contact me. I never get feedback from my readers. In the past year, I haven’t received a single letter or e-mail. If not for my compulsive spying, I wouldn’t get any feedback from the public at all.
To determine precisely how apathetic my audience is, I recently conducted an experiment. It was called “Operation Buy Me Lunch.”
For the past five issues I placed a prominent box beneath the horoscope, which subtly exhorted fans of the column to buy me lunch as a token of their appreciation. I surmised that the number of free lunches I received would be a valid indicator of how much my readers truly care.
Well, the numbers are in, and it seems that even in the world of jet-setting celebrity astrology, “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” The five-week trial period has passed, and in that time precisely zero people have stepped up the plate and pleasured my stomach with tasty victuals. The closest I got was a single, cruel e-taunt in which I was offered the decomposing peanut butter and jam sandwiches that lurk in the depths of someone’s locker.
This is extremely lame. Thank Allah I write the column primarily to amuse myself, or I would have quit writing, torn my robe and gone into seclusion long ago.
The Future.
So I’ve written 101 of the bleedin’ things, and after all is said and done, not even my most rabid fan is willing to give me a morsel of free food with no fungus on it. Where do you go when you’ve reached the top?
Seeking answers to this very question, I recently had my cat professionally sacrificed, and its entrails professionally examined. This, unfortunately, didn’t help. So I thought I’d just trust my gut, so to speak.
First, the bad news. Brace yourself! As of this issue, The Imfallible Horoscope will no longer be seen every week. Look for it every second week instead. But fear not, my pretties! The good news is that in those weeks when the horoscope does not run, I will keep you entertained with amusing articles on subjects as miscellaneous as miscellany can be. Whatever you do, don’t miscellany of them! Ha!
In the coming months I intend to take The Imfallible Horoscope into new realms of silliness, which, with any luck, will make the column nastier, weirder and less funny. I hope from the bottom of my bottom that you enjoy this next stage in the column’s evolution, and that you will drop me a note now and then to tell me what you like and dislike in my work, because that would be nice.
In the meantime, I’m sure you’ll be seeing me around campus. I’ll be easy to recognize—5’9”, brown hair, buying his lunch. Bastards! •
Originally published in The Peak, February 15 1999. I did in fact receive fan mail in the year before this piece ran; I claimed I didn’t to see how many readers I could shame into contacting me. After this piece was published I recieved many letters and lunch invitations, the latter of which I refused on principle.
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