Fax of Life

For money, and only for the money you understand, I spend a fair chunk of my time loitering in restaurants, doing card tricks like a performing monkey. Although, as I'm well aware, an actual performing monkey doing actual performing card tricks would be far more enjoyable. As a way to earn a living it's a job, not a career, I'd rather be elsewhere, but hell, something's got to pay the rent, and it's a damn sight easier than working for a living. So at work, there I am, waiting to approach a table and show my ten minutes of card tricks which I do fifteen times a night, five nights a week. Do try and look interested. Now you should know, the moment of approachment is very important, pick the wrong time and you might walk in on a divorce, an out-coming, a notice of baby. You have to be careful, so I'm waiting, carefully, scoping out the situation, listening to the family chat amiably away, mum, dad, three boys, when one of the boys says 'we love mum, because without mum, we wouldn't be here.' Oh crap. The dad replies, 'ah yes, but without daddy you wouldn't be here either.' Oh double crap. He continues, 'It takes a mummy and a daddy to make a baby.' Their faces cloud in bewilderment, torn between the blatant fallacy of what their father has spoken and a creeping sense that perhaps they are about to receive some very unnerving news. And right there, in a restaurant at three pm on a Sunday afternoon, Dad explains the facts of life to his ever-eye-widening under-five year olds. And once he's finished, once he's put down the salt and pepper pots used for illustrative and unimaginable purposes, I approach the table, and with their jaws locked to the floor, perform card tricks. Because really, what better to follow the miracle of birth than finding the four of diamonds?