Keep in a cool place to prevent hatching

Today I met the proprietor of this store: Frank Bee Costume. He tells us that a cotton candy machine costs $75 to rent, as does a popcorn machine, although one doesn't actually use the popcorn machine for popping corn--you buy it pre-popped. He also informs us that "any magician worth his soup" cannot be engaged for a Saturday in May, as they are booked months in advanced (and earn $225 an hour). But we are momentarily entertained by a magician who stopped by to pick up some money (Wayne, it turns out, is his agent) and the magician enthralls us with quarter tricks and a rubber bands. He and Wayne met when the magician took his watch during a trick. (Wayne knows a lot of people. He provided tents for a Barack Obama affair, and autographed photos of Obama, Martha Stewart, Donald Trump, Conan O'Brien, and a Yankee I do not know, hang on the walls around his desk).

There is a box of rattlesnake eggs near my feet. They look like this--I had not seen such since I was, oh, nine, and they remind me of the card sleeves from Clue. Wayne pulls one envelope out of the box, and begins fumbling with it under the desk. I smile at him. He hands the envelope to T-, and she opens it and shrieks. "I can see the smartness coming out of your eyes," he tells me, but it is not so much intelligence as a good memory.

The magician twists a balloon into Snoopy on a scooter, and Wayne gives each of us an envelope of rattlesnake eggs to take home.