The Parrot And The Magician

So there's this magician working on a small cruise ship. He's been doing his routines every night for a year or two now. The audiences appreciate him, and they change over often enough that he doesn't have to worry too much about new tricks. However, there's this parrot who sits in the back row and watches him night after night, year after year. Finally, the parrot figures out how the tricks work and starts giving it away for the audience. For example, when the magician makes a bouquet of flowers disappear, the parrot squawks "Behind his back! Behind his back!" Well, the magician get really annoyed at this, but he doesn't know what to do. The parrot belongs to the Captain, so he can't just kill it.

One day, the ship springs a leak and sinks. The magician manages to swim to a plank of wood floating by and grabs on. The parrot is sitting on the other end of the plank. They just stare at each other and drift. They drift for 3 days and still don't speak. On the morning of the fourth day, the parrot looks over at the magician and says: "OK, I give up. Where did you hide the ship?"


Updated at 15:47 EST on Tue Apr 11, 2006