When I was a kid I watched a huckster hawk these at the state fair.
I thought it was fascinating. Not the gadget really, but the pitch!
The guy had a card table of them and a small work table too.
That's it. No lights, no PA, nothing. Yet he held the rube's rapt attention for 1/2 hour at a time. I bet he got 25 or 30 of them clustered around.
He kept up a steady patter and kept demonstrating the gadget. As far as I could tell the gadget did actually work.
But it only worked once.
He'd take a dull knife and run it though and it would slice a tomato into paper.
Then he would casually slip the used gadget back into its little box, (all the while keeping the suckers attention elsewhere) and put it on the "sell" pile. Then pick out another from the separate unused stack and deftly open that.
He went though 5 or 6 while making his pitch.
I especially loved the long curvy ribbons of glass he cut with the attached glass cutter (it slices it dices............) fast and effortless.
What I didn't know at the time, being a kid, is that cutting glass square, straight and precisely? That is the skill.
Peeling off long curvy ribbons? as fast as you can imagine? is awfully fun,
but anybody can do that first day!
Its making them fit
that's the rub
Yes you heard me right, only one dollar, just one dollar ladies and gentlemen
Nowwwwwwwwww, Step right up, don't be shy.
yours Scott
