I Will Pay to See Your Shitty Amateur Magic Show in My Living Room
It’s Friday night, and all I want to do is pour myself drink, plop down on my sofa, and watch you emerge from behind a curtain sporting the tuxedo your dad once wore to his high school prom and tell me I am in store for two hours that will make me question what is real and what is magic, but first where’s the bathroom because there’s a bunch of colorful scarves riding up your butt crack.
That’s right. All I want to do tonight is lay back, relax, and be underwhelmed by some half-baked tricks you learned last night on YouTube.
I don’t want to turn on the TV and see a mob of manchildren demanding the head of my state representative.
I don’t want to go on Twitter and see my Uncle Henry raging about the trove of stolen ballots they found in Hillary Clinton’s basement.
No, I just want to pick a card, any card, and then watch you thumb through the deck anxiously, curse under your breath, and storm out of the room, only to return a minute later with a different deck of cards and ask me to pick a card again, acting like you hadn’t totally fucked it up the first time around.
Ah, wouldn’t that be the least maddening way I can think of to spend a Friday night.
Not looking at my phone, where a news alert just announced the Capitol riot was organized by 50 members of Congress and the MyPillow CEO.
Not plugged into Facebook, where this guy I sat next to in high school algebra is ranting that his First Amendment rights were violated because the liquor store clerk asked him to wear a mask and the next thing you know they’ll be taking God out of the Bible and making everyone get a sex change.
No, I just want to stretch out my legs, sip on a vodka soda, and watch you hold up your hands to show they are empty, pretending like I didn’t see that coin just slip out of your shirt sleeve and wobble for five seconds on the parquet floor before you had the presence of mind to stomp on it with your loafer.
So the answer is yes, dude whose business card I found slipped inside the pizza box you delivered to my house last weekend. You’re hired. I want you at my house in an hour, bag of tricks in hand, ready to do some corny-ass magic for a guy that literally can’t bear to look at anything else.
Oh, but wait a minute.
Fuck.
We’re gonna have to do this on Zoom. I don’t want to catch that new super strain of coronavirus and accidentally kill a dozen old people on my next trip to the grocery store.
