When I was a kid someone showed me a magic trick where he predicted my answers to three questions. He sat opposite me and had me write my answers down on a piece of paper behind a screen. Knowing this was impossible, I wrote down very specific answers, like “Coca Cola Machine.” He then produced three pieces of paper with the exact same answers for everyone question. With my head ready to explode I demanded he do it again, and he did, getting all three correct again.

For twelve years I thought about that trick before finally coming to the realization that someone was standing behind me telling him the answers. I wonder how many years it would have taken me to figure out that “skinning a watermelon” is just another illusion.

Mark Rober has posted a YouTube video explaining how to pull off the watermelon stunt and it’s a little bit easier than you’d think. Get two watermelons of the same size, remove the rind off one, then “sand” down the rough edges using dish-scrubbing pads to make it look smooth. With the other watermelon, cut it in half and “gut it” to produce an empty shell you can slide the first watermelon into.

He says you can eat it afterwards, but I’m not huge on food preparation that involves rubbing it with dish pads. The end result looks like it could be the egg of an alien, or what Gallagher sees in his nightmares on his darkest nights. Use this trick to impress all the children at your Labor Day BBQ this weekend. Some of them might even figure it out before the next decade.

Have any fun tricks like this? Share it in the comments below, but please explain it slowly to me.

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HT: Sploid