Change Bag?

Magicians speak and live in a different world and we think differently than those outside our world.  We all assume we can easily move back and forth between these two worlds but sometimes we get lost in translation.

I was enjoying a Holiday Inn breakfast after a show the previous evening.  I noticed a little girl standing at the food area and overheard her say, “Change bag.”  At first I assumed I didn’t understand her correctly.  Then she said it again, “Change bag.”  I knew it!  But why did she say it?  Did she recognize me as the magician at the show last night?  But why would she say, “change bag” because I didn’t use a change bag in that show.  And I certainly wouldn’t announce, “This is a change bag.”  I kept going over the possible answers as I was seated to eat.  Then her little brother stood up beside her and said, “Change bag?”  Now I was totally stumped.  How much more did these kids know about the world of magic?  Why did they find it necessary to share all the secrets with the people at the breakfast counter?  How long would I listen before I had to prevent them from saying words like, “thumb tip?”  Then the lady in charge of the breakfast came up to them and the little girl said, “The pancake machine says, ‘change bag.’”  At that point the lady changed the bag in the machine and I felt like an idiot.  However, the secret of thumb tips is safe.

I did learn something from this change bag experience.  Stop thinking like a magician!  We all do this.  We assume we have to start a card trick by announcing, “I have an ordinary deck of cards.”  Only we know it’s a gimmicked deck and we’re lying.  But ordinary people outside our world have no reason to assume anything other than an ordinary deck exists.  How many times do we allow our way of thinking to make our performances more complicated than they need to be?  And I figured all that out from a kid who simply wanted another pancake.