Like Magic

On Saturday, we invited my Japanese friend P over to our hotel for
lunch. He is here on a one-year contract and is renting a house here,
but doesn't yet have much for his kitchen and eats out a lot. J thought
it would be nice to make him lunch and she had brought some things to
make miso soup and curry from Japan. The furnished room we are renting
while here is pretty nice and has a living room with two sofas and a low
table, so we decided to set up lunch there. P arrived around 12:30 and
we enjoyed a nice long lunch, then ordered some macchiato from the hotel
restaurant. P recently retired from his position at Ethiopian Airlines
so he told us lots of stories about his experience in the airline
business over the years. We really enjoyed his company and he even gave
us a laugh with a few magic tricks. He doesn't claim to be a
professional, but he has some good tricks up his sleeve and a practiced
sleight of hand. Then he told us that when he was first starting out
looking for a job, he had jotted the hobby down on his resume, and
passed his first interview with a big US airline when the interviewer
asked him to do a trick. After a few hours, P said he would get going,
so we bid him goodbye and I told him I'd see him in a couple months when
I come back. He headed down to his car and we could see him from our
balcony; unfortunately, P seemed to have locked his keys in his car!
Luckily, one of the hotel carpenters was nearby and showed P a trick of
his own: how to get a car window open without breaking it.