How'd you get into this?

About Us - About Us

Last Updated on Friday, 22 May 2009 15:13

Probably the most common question I’m asked, right behind, “Is this all you do?” is “How’d you get into this?”  I came to Auburn in August of 1996 to start graduate work in history after graduating from the University of North Alabama.   To help pay for school, I got a job at Books-A-Million. 

  After finishing fall quarter, I had a minor identity crisis and decided I didn’t want to be a History Professor.  I dropped out of school.  Over Christmas though, I thought it over and realized that it would be a shame to miss out on continuing my education.  I had graduated with the highest G.P.A. in both of my majors, history and political science.  I say that not to brag, but to provide context.  Without actually missing any school, I enrolled in the two classes I needed to be accepted into Auburn’s M.B.A program.  I took the GMAT, did well, and would have started graduate work spring quarter 1997.  However, I had another identity crisis and decided that the world of business wasn’t for me.  The materialism implicit in the school of business was a bit much. 

Then I went through a series of bad jobs.  I tried to sell ads for the Best Talk Yellow Pages in Columbus, GA.  A combination of terrible leads and my poor salesmanship, and the beginning of the end of print advertising got me fired after a month.  In July, I went to work with a friend who had a retail computer shop.  The shop wasn’t making enough money to pay me, so after I spent all of my savings and ran out of credit, I limped into Burger King and started work as a cook.  Reeking of onion rings and tired of getting up at 4 AM every day, I thought that perhaps school was for me.  I crawled into the political science office and pleaded my way in.  I enrolled as a political science graduate student winter quarter 1998. 

I had dropped out of school twice already at this point, so I joked with my friends that if I dropped out of school again, I would be a clown. 

I played Santa Claus at Books-A-Million over Christmas 1997(both my dad and oldest brother have played Santa), and kept working there as a regular employee. 

I saw books on twisting balloon animals and on magic while wandering the stacks at work.  One February afternoon, I got bored and decided to twist balloons.  I went to Wal-Mart and bought some long balloons.  I couldn’t twist them.  I went to Books-A-Million and bought one of the twisting books.  Over the next couple of weeks, I drove my roommate crazy by squeaking and popping balloons.  I practiced until I popped fewer balloons than I made (about two weeks), and offered my services to the Auburn Early Education center.  My first public performance was on A-Day 1998.  I kept practicing at home, and at Joe Mugs inside Books-A-Million, and sitting around at the mall.  After a couple of months, my roommate told me that one of his old roommates had been a magician at Niffer’s Place.  Before that, I had never heard of anyone doing magic or balloons at a restaurant.  I talked to the owner at Niffer’s, showed her some of my magic (which was terrible) and balloons (which weren’t much better) and she hired me for the Kid’s Night.  I started in August 1998.  With the exception of a semester here and there when I had to miss for an evening class, and the occasional holiday, sick day, or other engagement, I’ve been there every Wednesday ever since. 

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