Hello!

So you all are pretty much aware that I ran four magic schools attached to four different magic shops that I managed at the same time. I did this 5-7 days a week for over 30 years.

That's a LOT of magic performed and sometimes a LOT of time between customers. That kind of time can lead one who is of a peculiar turn of mind to think up jokes to play upon ones customers. Of all the jokes that I came up with during that time, the one that got the most play and was the most popular and frankly got me in the most trouble was the X-Ray Glasses. What the heck did you do Brad?

Well, one of the things that happen in any retail store is that folks will forget and leave their sunglasses. You save them waiting futilely for them to return and retrieve the sunglasses. Generally they do not. So what you end up with is about 6-9 pairs of sunglasses that you can't use because you are so near sighted that you must have perscription ones. What is one to do with those glasses?

Well, one day I took a pair and with a Sharpie marker made a circular Hypno looking design on each of the two lenses. These particular glasses were rather light in color and thus the spirals were quite discernable. I was also in the habit of making ALL the little cards that gave the name and price of every bloody thing in the shop so I made up a card that said: Deluxe X-Ray Specs $323.50.

I then proceeded to place them in a semi-prominent place upon the shelves and waited for the fun to begin. Now, understand something. In no POSSIBLE way did I expect ANYONE to take this seriously!!! You have to understand that. I figured it was good for a fun sight gag that I and the guys would laugh about, etc. Hmmmmmmm.... Remember that saying about a sucker being born every minute?

So, a customer walks in the door and I demo some tricks, etc. Finally, he notices the glasses. He gets this quizzical look on his face and asks me if he can 'see' the X-Ray Glasses. I give them to him. Looking as serious as death he proceeds to put them on and look around intently. "How do they work?" he asked.

O.k., I'm stunned. I realize that HE HAS BOUGHT INTO THE JOKE! He thinks that it's real. I couldn't resist. "You just touch the fram right here," I tell him as I gently touch the frame by the right hinge screw. He attempts to get them to work and ....... I finally let on that it's all a joke!

He was not amused. Well, he wasn't totally ****ed, but you know. Anyway, this went on and on! Everyone bought into the 'reality' of the glasses. I learned a GREAT lesson in magic. Do you know what it was??? Can you suss it out? Keep in mind that these freaking things in no way looked commercially made. They looked like an eight year old had gimmicked them up and yet..... THEY BOUGHT IT! What did I learn?

Tell you what let's make it into a contest: The first person with the BEST...RIGHT answer wins a $35.00 Sudbury II Silver Dollar Sized All Copper Penny. How's that?

So, to make clear: What relation does the above story 'have' to magic? What can one learn from it? Best,

I have had some excellent thoughtful submissions to my little contest. Thank you! I'm going to let it go for a while and see what comes up and then publish all of them, pick a winner, etc.

The amazing thing so far and I had not anticipated this (I did the thing kind of on the fly) is that every single response so far has real value and adds some weight to the discussion. Thanks again,