The disappearing act

Some magicians spend years perfecting their art. The better ones may eventually make money by going on stage and waving their hands in the air to produce bunches of flowers or somehow place a pretty girl in a cabinet and get her to disappear. (What a waste, I always thought!) One thing I have never understood is why people are so impressed. Surely anyone who has had a teenager knows they can make anything disappear.

Let’s examine this week as an example of Junior’s skill in this regard.

It is so obvious to any teen parent that food disappears from the fridge. What is less obvious sometimes is how it is done. You look in the fridge and there is a very large chunk of cheddar cheese. Without leaving the kitchen you plan how you are going to cook that cheese and you get the utensils and other ingredients out for a Welsh Rarebit. You open the fridge door again and the cheese has gone. Does the fridge have a hidden back door that leads directly into his den, I wonder?

In the kitchen we have a pair of orange handled scissors. They are excellent scissors. Junior had been in the kitchen creating one of his excellent Chinese stir fries. When he had finished I washed the dishes for him. (How do you use every dish and utensil in the house to create one stir fry?) The scissors were not among the items I washed. Nor were they in the drawer when I went to use them later that day. They disappeared for a week only to turn up in the fridge in his den. Magic!

I reckon that around the house there are scattered about seven CD players of various sorts. Actually, that seems now to be only six. Oh, the one in the bedroom has gone as well, make that five. I could have sworn there was one in the corner of the lounge. Oh well, at least there’s one in the conservatory. Yes, OK, you can borrow it to listen to the match on the radio if you’re sure your radio isn’t working but you must return it.... Damn. Not a CD player anywhere. What’s he doing, Running a market stall of electrical goods?

But the ultimate disappearing act involves Junior himself.

Me - “Can I just have a word with you for a moment?”
Junior - “Sure, can I just set my Sky to record and I’ll be back in a moment.”
Disappears and doesn’t reappear for at least two days...

Me - “Can I just show you a job I’d like doing in the garden?”
Junior - “Sure, can I just put some shoes on.”
Disappears for at least three days....

What he doesn’t know is I’m working up to finding just the right phrase to make him disappear for a month or two.... Ah, bliss.