Elvis and Houdini

Late one afternoon, Harry Houdini dropped by to visit with Elvis Presley.  Houdini found Elvis twisting wrenches underneath a baby blue, 1957 Chevy Nomad wagon.  Peering out from underneath the Nomad, Elvis recognized Houdini by his 1920s gangster spats.

“Hey, magic man,” Elvis called out.  “Can you kick that nine-sixteenths box end wrench in for me?”

“What are you doing under there?” asked Houdini.

“I’m putting together some sweet sounding pipes.”

“Are you certain you need a nine-sixteenths?  I am always confusing those with seventeen-thirty-seconds.”

Elvis responded without hesitation.  “I know my pipes, man.”

“I suppose you do,” Harry Houdini said.  With that Houdini vanished, because that’s what escape artists and magicians do.

Elvis slid out from underneath the Nomad and dug through an assortment of wrenches scattered across the ground.  Singing Suspicious Minds, Elvis picked out both a nine-sixteenths and seventeen-thirty-seconds wrench.  He crawled back under the car again.

Elvis quickly muffled his tune when he discovered that the seventeen-thirty-seconds wrench perfectly fit the bolts he was working with underneath the Nomad.

--Mitchell Hegman