One of our favorite video game series of all time is "Monkey Island". Playing as the bumbling pirate wannabe, the spectacularly named Guybrush Threepwood, you travel to exotic locales, battle terrible curses, drink lots of virtual grog, and rescue the beautiful damsel... or sometimes the damsel rescues you. There are a lot of monkeys. It's a good time.

In his journeys, Guybrush is aided by the mysterious Voodoo Lady (that's her name). She lives in the middle of the jungle and gives you sometimes-useful yet always-cryptic advice. Her house is full of all kinds of voodoo mumbo-jumbo, from shrunken heads to mysterious glass jars to rubber chickens. Did we mention we love these games?

Sadly, in real life pirates are a thing of the past. Voodoo ladies? They are all too real.

Meet Mambo Sallie. She is a real life voodoo lady who has a bustling practice in New Orleans. We're not sure if she'll be able to put a curse on that annoying co-worker, or if she can raise the dead (please don't try to raise the dead), or even if she owns chickens. But we are sure that she was born Jewish, as Sallie Ann Glassman, and somehow got indoctrinated into the macabre arts.

Real life is sometimes stranger than a video game, isn't it?