Cool Card Tricks

by Ethan Cole
 
 

Do you have a crazy uncle in your family? I sure do in mine. Uncle Artie is the person to avoid at family gatherings. If you are unlucky enough to get cornered by him you will spend the afternoon listening to jokes that were old the last time he told them to you. No one else will come to your rescue either; they feel that if Uncle Artie is talking to you they are safe.

Last week my family had a graduation party, and Uncle Artie was there. I had just arrived and had taken my present to the gift table in the corner of the living room when I spotted him coming towards me. There were too many people to make a quick getaway, I was stuck. I caught my sister’s eye from across the room and saw her smile with a glint in her eye. She already knew what I was about to find out, Uncle Artie has been working on card tricks. As soon as I saw him pull the deck of cards out of his pocket I knew that I was doomed. He was very excited to tell me that he had several card tricks that he wanted to show me. I knew I had to think fast or spend the entire party backed into the corner by the gift table. I told Uncle Artie that my husband would be very interested in the card tricks, so we should locate him before the show started. This allowed me to at least get out of the corner.
 

Uncle Artie was close on my heels as I walked through the room trying to spot my husband. He had gone outside to play bocce ball. I asked Uncle Artie to wait with his card tricks until the ball game was over. He looked very disappointed, but then he spotted another new guest and went to show them the card tricks. My sister was amazed when she saw that I had avoided the card tricks. I told her that I had only bought myself some time, but at least I was no longer trapped by the gift table. She said that she had seen the card tricks with a group of people when Artie first arrived; she said that some of them were pretty good.

When my husband came in from outside Artie was eating. We decided to eat also so we filled our plates in the buffet line and found a place to sit. We were about half way done with our food when Artie found us. He took out his deck of cards and began shuffling them for the first of what promised to be many card tricks. He started by asking me to draw a card and remember what it was. He then shuffled the deck and produced my card from the top of the deck. I was surprised at how well he pulled this off. His other card tricks were also entertaining. After showing them to us he moved on to another group. We had to agree that watching card tricks was a vast improvement over the jokes and stories that Uncle Artie usually tells.