The Magician's New Trick

A magician worked on a cruise ship. The audience was different each week so he did the same tricks over and over again. There was only one problem with that strategy: the captain's parrot saw the shows each week and began to understand how the magician did every trick.

Once he understood, he started shouting in the middle of the show, "Look, it's not the same hat!" or "Look, he's hiding the flowers under the table!" or "Hey, why are all the cards the ace of spades?" The magician was furious but couldn't do anything -- it was, after all, the Captain's parrot.

Then one stormy night on the Pacific, the ship unfortunately sank, drowning all who were on board -- except the magician, who found himself on a piece of wood floating in the middle of the sea. As fate would have it, the parrot also survived and, when the sun came up, he spotted the one safe harbor on the open ocean -- the same piece of wood. He landed and shared the space with the magician. They stared at each other with hatred, but neither one uttered a word.

This went on for a day, and then two days, and then three days. Finally on the fourth day, the parrot could not hold back any longer. "OK, I give up," the parrot said to the magician. "Great new trick. Now: where the hell is the ship?"