The Magic String trick..
I was just explaining this to R, and thought I should probably post it.
Another term used in my family is "It's a magic string trick".
So what's a magic string trick?
When my brother and I were kids, we had the normal facination with slight of hand, and learned some, including a floating pencil/spoon trick that relies in part on the rigidity of the form. We got it down, and showed mom, and showed her how we did it, so Mom was joining us in grabbing things and making them "float". We were yelling out things, "Magic fork" "Magic barbie" et cetra.. then Mom grabbed the piece of string.
"LOOK! Magic string!" and the string lay limply over her hand.
Took us a while to stop laughing.
So a magic string trick is when something just doesn't work according to plan because you forgot to take something important into consideration, and you feel sort of silly afterwards.
Another term used in my family is "It's a magic string trick".
So what's a magic string trick?
When my brother and I were kids, we had the normal facination with slight of hand, and learned some, including a floating pencil/spoon trick that relies in part on the rigidity of the form. We got it down, and showed mom, and showed her how we did it, so Mom was joining us in grabbing things and making them "float". We were yelling out things, "Magic fork" "Magic barbie" et cetra.. then Mom grabbed the piece of string.
"LOOK! Magic string!" and the string lay limply over her hand.
Took us a while to stop laughing.
So a magic string trick is when something just doesn't work according to plan because you forgot to take something important into consideration, and you feel sort of silly afterwards.