Weekend at Harry's

Deb and I were at the Outagamie Museum this weekend. Judy and Glenn took care of the girls while we checked out the somewhat controversial Harry Houdini exhibit at the museum.

The exhibit reveals how Harry pulled off some of his illusions. That's the controversy. Many people objected to the museum revealing these secrets. I doubt if the protesters were working magicians in fear of these revelations hitting them in their breadbaskets. After all, letting people in on the fact that Houdini had a trick panel here or some fake rivets there couldn't be too much of a bombshell for today's savvy, jaded magic audience. I'm sure it had more to do with violating the sacred magician's code or just another attempt to chip away at what little wonder we have left in our savvy, jaded lives.

I'm all for magician's codes and a little wonder creeping into my life here and there. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy getting a glimpse of how Harry fooled his public. In fact, I plan to use these secrets in my daily life for personal gain. With this in mind, I regret not buying the $300 straightjacket on sale in the museum's gift shop. I would have worn it to work. No one argues with a crazy person unless they're in a courtroom.

Did I mention Judy and Glenn had the kids? The trip was actually a weekend getaway to celebrate our anniversary. We had a good time. I lost to Deb at tic-tac-toe. How this happened I'm not sure. I was distracted. I must have been distracted. Same thing with the two games of ping-pong we played. I can't see how Deb's hand-eye coordination could be superior to mine. The woman can barely throw a ball so how the hell she managed to kick my ass at ping-pong makes absolutely no sense at all. I must have been distracted.

Battleship.

We played Battleship at the museum and I won.

Does all of this sound romantic?

It was.

Sure. There was also the requisite giggling, moony eyes and handholding across the table during dinner. But you don't want hear about that.

It's best not to reveal everything. Harry would want it that way.

The drive home did a great job of bringing us back to reality. Julia was cranky and whined for most of the trip. The whining became rhythmic for about 15 minutes. That's a long, long time to listen to our daughter's weird chant. I was convinced she was summoning some kind pagan god of toddler retribution who would smite us for trying to push milk over juice one too many times.

This was after Deb became upset with me for telling Allie about the time my grade school pal, Scott, took a dump and wiped his ass with pink, fiberglass insulation. It's a good story, especially if you know just how itchy you get working with insulation. Unfortunately Allie hasn't had much experience with the stuff so I was the only one in the car amused.

This is often the case.