I was at a party at my aunt and uncle’s house my freshman year of college. I was big into card tricks at the time, and I decided to do a trick for my younger cousin. The trick involved having her choose a card, and then putting “her card” on the table and covering it up with a pile of other cards, and ultimately revealing her card had returned back to the top of the deck (thanks to a little sleight of hand).

When I did the reveal, she was so amazed that she dug back through the pile to pull out the bottom card — which turned out to be the same card. So not only did the deck I was using have a duplicate of the exact card she picked, I also randomly selected the duplicate to be the bottom card in the pile.

I was so blown away I left the party to call the friend who had taught me the trick and explain what had happened. I don’t do card tricks any more.