The Magician and the Cupcake

When I was five or six years old, my parents hired a magician to perform at my birthday party. He was only a kid--a freshman in college looking to make a few extra bucks on weekends, but I was in total awe and thought he was really magic. He wore a powder blue tuxedo and a top hat, and had long, blond, shaggy sideburns (it was the 70's, after all, or maybe early 80's).

It was a small party--just a handful of neighborhood and preschool friends. I had on my best dress, which was my Christmas dress.

His grand finale: he held the top hat out, turned it over to show it was empty, and had me shake it around and inspect it a little. Then he held the hat out to me upside down, and asked me to put in imaginary ingredients: flour, sugar, vanilla, baking powder, butter, and chocolate. He took his wand and waved it carefully over the hat, murmuring the words "abracadabra" over and over with intensity and an arched eyebrow, then had me do the same.

He reached into the hat and pulled out two Hostess cupcakes. From nothing! My imaginary ingredients and magic words had brought forth a food I was NEVER allowed to eat. My mother didn't buy anything from Hostess, though we always had plenty of carob chips and dried prunes in the house. I always saw the Twinkies and Sno-Balls as we checked out at the grocery store but had never actually tasted any bakery item that came in a cellophane wrapper.

I felt I'd hit the jackpot, and that no birthday could ever, ever be as excellent as one where I was given TWO chocolate cupcakes and not even forced to share them with my little brother. And this on a day when I was already guaranteed to get birthday cake. I couldn't believe my luck.

I don't remember any of the gifts I got that year, but I remember that pimpled, blue-tuxedo-ed college kid and the magic and mystery of those Hostess cupcakes that came out of nowhere.