(Author’s note: When I saw a Humorous Speech Contest was on the horizon, I looked for inspiration by dipping into a topic near and dear to my heart: Magic. I finally gave the speech at the contest today… and won!

Given the background of this topic, I thought you all could probably relate as well and wanted to share it with you. Enjoy!)

In 1993, Richard Garfield invented the world’s first strategy Trading Card Game and decided to name it “Magic.” This subsequently made my life, and the lives of millions of other players around the globe, infinitely more difficult.

You see, there is an innate danger with giving something you made the same name as an actual word. Sometimes it doesn’t work out too bad. Most games actually have it alright. I mean, Boggle and the word boggle and Monopoly and the word monopoly worked out okay, right?

But Magic has it far worse off.

I’ll never forget the time I has just moved off to college. I was doing a pretty good job masquerading as a cool person, and before I knew it, I had a potential lady friend in my sights. I invited her back to my place to show her around my very small apartment one night. “Well, see here’s the TV. That’s where I watch things. And here’s the kitchen. That’s where I make food. Oh, and I couldn’t get a good table to play games on, so here’s my bed. That’s where the Magic happens.”

I have never seen somebody leave my house quite so quickly.

And, this might have been okay if this kind of thing only happened once or twice. But you have to understand that Magic was a huge driving force in my life. I played the game all around the world.

So yeah, it’s a game ripe for puns. But there’s one thing that is the bane of all Magic players. The thing that creeps into every Magic player’s life: people thinking that, instead of playing a strategy card game on par with the mental level of chess about awesome dragons and super cool knights you’re actually… a stage magician.

It all began just weeks after I started playing. I was ten years old over at my grandmother’s house and my mother had told me about this new game I started playing called Magic. So she called me out in front of her, I showed her some of my awesome cards, she nodded, completely bemused, and then, as if the pictures of spells and elves and goblins had meant nothing to her she asked me: “okay then, show me your best trick.”

And that’s where the eternal torment all began.

Over the next few months of my life I would learn to come to terms with the common mishap among my friends and family. I had to learn the skill of “Magic-Judo.” First, you tell them about Magic - strike! - then they attack you with thinking it’s about magic tricks - block! - and then you have to strike back again and drill in that it’s a card game. In time, I learned how to explain what it was quickly and deftly.

But, of course, nothing can ever be quite that smooth. There was always… [dramatic pause] The Dentist.

You see, the problem with occupations like doctors and dentists is that they only see you around once or twice a year. And, as a result, they only have to remember exactly enough of your conversation that, despite being the cruel needle-wielding citizens they are, they can pick it up from where they left off and seem friendly.

So, my first trip to the dentist after starting Magic, I explained it. He, like everybody else, thought it was stage magic, and so I handed it deftly. And I thought that was that. Problem solved.

…Until 6 months later, when I came back.

I sat down in the dentist’s chair, waiting for the drill or spleen remover or whatever other accursed instrument in his weaponry array to be picked up, looking him in the eye, and he asked me: “So, performed at any magic shows lately?”

I once again explained, and this time I thought I had did it. Surely twice would be enough.

Well, eventually, four visits later and four more explanations later, I had had it. He clearly wasn’t going to be convinced. So I took the next entirely logical avenue: pretending to be a magician.

Every six months like clockwork, I would sit in his chair, and he would ask me how my magic was going and what new tricks I could do. Knowing perfectly well that he would forget anything I said by six months later, I told him grand tales of how I could fabricate rabbits out of hats, saw off my own arm, and make cards disappear.

Each visit, my tales got more and more grand than the last. Making cards float in midair quickly turned into making cousins teleport across the street, and then into jumping into a lake with my feet in a cinder block. When I finally qualified for my first pro level event in Berlin, I told him that I was going there to perform an incredible magic show. In his mind, I must have been the Harry Houdini of our time.

I should note that to this day, 14 years later, I still have the same dentist. When I landed my current job as a game designer making Magic cards, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that everything had been a ruse. So, instead I told him I went to work as a “consulting magician,” inventing new tricks and teaching them to others.

Hey. It’s not that far off.

But it was when I went into college that everything changed yet again. Because, you see, a crucial new element was added in to throw off my Magic-explaining routine: alcohol.

Now, it’s not what you’re thinking. It’s not me drinking too much and trying to explain Magic. No, no, no. It’s about trying to explain to a drunk person that the word they were sure meant one thing actually meant something else.

I mean, you might as well try and convince a three year old that your face doesn’t really disappear when you play peek-a-boo. If you say the words Magic, no matter how many combinations of “strategy game,” “fantasy theme,” “dragons,” and “NO I CANNOT FIND YOUR CARD IN THIS DECK!” you spout, you will inevitably end up with somebody reaching into their purse and shoving a deck of Bicycle cards in your face.

So, I did what any self-respecting college student would do when constantly peer-pressured by their friends: I learned how to actually do magic tricks.

The world had suddenly come completely full circle. I learned how to make cards disappear, stack the deck, and otherwise hornswoggle you into believing I was Harry Potter. If somebody shoved a stack of red and black playing cards in my face, I’d sigh… and then show them a trick or two to make them believe that was how I earned my money.

Suddenly, knowing at least a few tricks, I felt a lot better about everything I had ever told my dentist.

Eventually, I graduated college and started moving into what some people might call the “real world.” I got the job I wanted making the game. I settled into an environment where I no longer needed to explain everything quite as much. Every now then it would come up, but most people I spend time with already spoke my language.

But there was one particular moment that brought everything back around for me. Each year, there’s a Magic cruise and I always go on it. The Magic players don’t take over the entire ship, but we’re certainly a large contingent and we have our own conference room to ourselves. But, as is the nature of being on a cruise ship, the room is open and sometimes people with no idea wander in.

Now, over the years I’ve grown more and more proficient at explaining what the game is to people. Old person on a cruise ship walk in? Check, I can explain then. Overly belligerent intoxicated person not understand what the game is all about? I can do a card trick or two for them. But last year, I encountered something I had never seen before and likely will never see again in my entire life.

Our tournament room was open and somebody wandered in, a bit bemused and looking around. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, a dash of greying hair but still with a vibrant twinkle in his eye. I went up to him, expecting him to not know anything about the game.

“What is this?” he asked.

“Magic,” I replied. “It’s a strategy card game sort of like Chess where you pick your own pieces out of thousands to play with.”

A smile crept over his face. He burst out laughing.

“Sir, are you okay? Was something there funny to you?”

In between chortles of laughter, he began to speak. “Oh, so this is Magic!” he replied. “My entire life people have been thinking playing this card game is what I did!“ He paused, rummaging around for a business card to prove otherwise. ” You see… I’m actually a stage magician!“

I suppose it’s really all a matter of perspective.