How Sweet It Is by Jim Heuser

Effect: A small fly swatter is passed for examination. The performer patters about the advantages of a mini fly swatter. Guaranteed to keep flies away at all times. Suddenly, a fly appears on the swatter. Embarrassed by this turn of events, the performer blows the fly off the swatter and watches it fly away. As he returns to his story, the fly is again found on the swatter. Becoming vexed, he brushes the fly away with his hand. He looks on both sides of the swatter to convince himself the fly is finally gone. The fly is not on either side, so back to the story. But has the fly gone? No! There it is back on the end. Disgusted the performer turns the swatter over in an obvious attempt to ignore the pesky fly. But now the fly is on the other side. At least, that is what everyone thinks! However, upon turning the swatter over, the performer finds he has two flies to contend with; one on each side.

Frustrated, he carefully and deliberately picks the top fly off the swatter and asks a spectator to hold it while he gets the other one. He turns the swatter -over and finds not one, but two flies, side by side. The spectator’s hand is opened and the fly he was holding is gone. The performer picks each fly off and places them in his pocket, covering it with his hand. The swatter is shown empty on both sides. He proceeds to wipe his brow in relief of getting rid of the flies. The sudden realization that he has taken his hand off the pocket with the flies causes him to look at the swatter. Sure enough, the flies have returned and one is found on each side.

The performer takes a piece of fly paper from his pocket and presses it over the flies. He pulls it off the swatter and shows both sides of it empty. He puts the fly paper with the flies in his pocket and patters about what could have been attracting those flies. To everyone’s astonishment, the answer appears on the swatter in the form of a sugar cube. Another cube is found on the other side when the swatter is turned over.

The performer removes the two sugar cubes and tosses them, on the table,
stating, “Anyone have a cup of coffee so this is not a complete failure.”

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