Ladies & Gentlemen

This is a special announcement for my female readers.

Sorry, bitches!

You will not get your delicate paws on this close-up mat.

That's because, as the ad says, this is for the gentleman conjuror.

Oh, "Wah-wahh-wahhh!" Cram it, sister. I don't want to hear your whining. Go squeeze your boobs together, or whatever you ladies do with those things.

What were your plans for it anyway? Were you going to sop up your voluminous menstrual blood with it or some junk like that? This is a rich, velvety close-up pad for men. What don't you get about that? What are you even doing at this IBM ring meeting if you're not feeding or fellating us? There's no room for women in the refined art of wizard-pretending!

Magic is for sophisticated men like this

Or this

Or this

Magic provides me with the opportunity to gather with distinguished men such as these and to drink brandy and discuss Magic and Showmanship by Henning Nelms. Don't be naive, that book is just as relevant today as it ever was. You just don't understand it because your lady-brain is too full of Zumba routines, recipes, and the names of different breeds of horses to really "get" such a sophisticated art form.

What's next? You want to get your Lee Press-On Nails on our coin purses too?

Our gentleman's coin purses? The ones we keep our gentleman's coins in? Because that's where it seems like this is going. And you know a coin purse is a man's most sacred possession. The object by which other men judge his masculinity. Customarily they were made of a man's own scrotum.

Now, as the ad copy for this close-up pad says, it fits alongside your notebook, computer or tablet. These are instruments we men use for designing bridges and curing diseases. It does not say the close-up pad comfortably fits next to your mascara, vibrator, and Gilmore Girls DVDs. Because, let me repeat: This. Is. For. The. Gentleman. Conjuror.

I guess my main concern is this: The public perception of a "magician" is of a super-classy, gentleman. Yes, perhaps he has some of the traits of a scoundrel, but he has the heart of a noble man of good breeding. And we men have done such a commendable job of representing magicians as dashing, debonair men of taste and dignity that I'm a little concerned of what might happen if women were genuinely invited into the fold. Might they not undermine all the work we've done to build up magic as a hobby that is the epitome of urbane elegance?

And why can't they just use that close-up pad we designed specifically for them?