John was excited! After many months of having shows postponed, cancelled or simply not booked in the first place, he was finally due to entertain at a wedding. Even this event had been rescheduled twice due to COVID, but with just two days left until the big day, it looked like that despite everything his booking was going to survive.
Naturally enough he was a little anxious about how it would all go. Would he remember how to work close up at tables? Previously it had all been second nature to him, but now…..maybe when he started to perform he would feel ‘rusty’ and ill prepared.
Well, in order to make sure this didn’t happen, John had been spending a lot of his spare time practising everything that he might be called upon to use. His sponge bunnies were up to speed, his Chop Cup was impeccable, and his Professor’s Nightmare worked perfectly every time.
So from a technical standpoint, he felt reasonably confident. But the aspect of it all that concerned him the most was the COVID-related precautions that he felt he needed to take. This was proving to be more of a challenge.
For instance, how was he going to carry his squeezy top container of instant sanitiser fluid? He needed it to be kept upright in case it dribbled over his clothing or his props, so the only place he could think of to put it was in his outside jacket top pocket.
Actually, although a bit bulky (he’d have to leave his card to wallet at home as he couldn’t fit it into the inside left jacket pocket any more), the convenient way that the dispenser’s plunger stuck permanently out of the top of his pocket meant he could offer it easily to spectators between each trick.
He’d debated long and hard over whether to wear a surgical mask or a visor, and eventually had plumped for the mask even though it did have a tendency to steam up his glasses making it difficult for him to see markings on the backs of cards. He couldn’t take his Boris Wild Deck as a result.
He was a bit worried about his hands too. The only gloves he had were thick winter mittens or a pair of sturdy gardening gloves. In the end he decided on the mittens since the other pair were covered in manure. Mittens made some prop handling tricky, so he decided to not do any coin magic….or card tricks.
The other thing that was worrying him was whether to allow spectators to handle or examine any of his props. He liked, for instance, to allow a spectator to examine his Okito Box, but was concerned that they would we cautious about picking up any stray germs from the brass. However, fortunately his Mum was excellent at knitting and she had managed to produce two miniature covers to slip over the box base and lid from some spare purple wool which she had left over from the jumper she had knitted John for his birthday.
Well, that felt like every eventuality had been covered. Better just do a lateral flow test then, he thought. Despite gagging repeatedly, he eventually managed to get a suitable sample which he dripped into the reader. He peered at the reader’s display. What does it mean if there’s a line next to the C and the T?