Excuse me

Whenever people find out I'm a magician, and though I try to conceal it, it happens a lot, they tend to ask for a trick. And who can blame them? I, however, refuse. Here's why: A couple of years ago, at a very trendy party in Clapham, surrounded by champagne, cigars and beautiful women, I was having the time of my life. I had come with a friend, who invited me at the last minute. Now this wasn't just any fancy party right here, this was a themed party of seventies persuasion, and I wadn't lookin' too seventies (apart from my Abba hair that is...) 'Don't worry,' my friend swayed, 'just bring your cards, and they'll love you!' Good idea, how could they not? So there I was, charming the underwear of all and sundry, performing to a group of salivating onlookers, in awe as I pulled cards from wallets, coins from ears, cheese from pineapple! And then... I look across the room, to where the party has most definitely not got started, and across the room is a guy making balloon animals. Giraffes, horses, badgers, oh he's going for it baby! Balloons spill out of pockets, he turns redder and redder with each inflation, dark patches forming under his armpits from all the twisting. Who is that clown? I ask. Oh, that's Simon from Accounts, comes the reply, he's kinda dull. The girl chips in, that's his way of chatting up the girls, the animals; it's his thing. His thing? He has a thing? Very slowly I looked down to my hands. I have a thing!! Oh man! A deck of 52 social crutches lay splayed in my fingers, I undeniably have a thing! I take my thing to parties! And get it out when I didn't have anything else to do!! I've become SIMON!!!! I could work in ACCOUNTS!!! I looked up and people stared at me, expectantly, impatiently, waiting for the card trick monkey to do his next little dance. I walked into the kitchen. I opened the bin. I threw my cards away. And that's why this monkey dances no longer.