I Want to be a Magician

I Want to be a Magician

I want to be a magician. Now, let's be clear about this: I do not mean that I want to be a necromancer, to commune with the dead or to play Dungeons and Dragons. I want to be a sleight of hand magician, like David Copperfield only a whole lot cooler.

Why, you may justifiably ask?

Because magicians have, in my estimation, the greatest job in the world. No, not because they get to cut people in half. Murderers get to cut people in half, and I am not suggesting that being a murderer is the best job in the world (it's not even in the top twenty!)

No, magicians have the greatest job in the world because their entire profession revolves around making you look and feel like and idiot, and you pay them for the privilege.

Consider the average magician's trick. They hold out a ball and show it to you. You look at it. They explain that it is a perfectly normal ball. You agree, because what do you know? They even hand it over to you and ask you to check and make sure that it is a normal ball, as if you have any special qualifications to make that assessment. So you take it, look at it, maybe bounce it, and discren that, yes, it is, according to your limited understanding of such arcane things, a perfectly normal ball. The magician takes the ball back, shows it to everyone again -  "Here's the ball, see the ball, can you see it? watch it carefully, watch the ball" - and you're all watching it with severe intensity like complete buffoons when bang! it's gone.

And the magician's like "Where's the ball? Where did it go? It was right here, but you don't know where it is now. I know where it is but you don't. I'm a magician, you're an idiot. Give me money."

And you DO. You give him money. Why do you give him money? Because you are desperate to know where that freakin ball is, that's why. And the magician won't telll you, because he wants to SHOW you, to reinforce the fact that it's nothing less than a sheer miracle that you actually managed to dress yourself on your own this morning.

"Hmmmm, where could that ball be?" the magician asks pompously as he strokes his ridiculous little beard. And you know, you just KNOW, that the stupid ball is going to be hidden somewhere about your person. Sure enough, this arrogant little magus points to you and says, "Hey, this is really just a wild guess, but perhaps you'd like to check and see if that ball is in your underwear." And so, relinquishing all dignity, modesty and any semblance of decorum you put your hand down your pants to discover that, yes, the magician has somehow managed to violate your personal space to such a degree that this blessed ball is impossibly located INSIDE YOUR OWN UNDERGARMENTS. You bring it out sheepishly, the magician instructs you to keep the now-soiled ball, everyone laughs at you, and you give the magician even more money for this final degradation.

This is why I want to be a magician.