TIFU by agreeing to become a street magician's assistant

Hey everyone,

Just got back from Italy and I need to warn you all: if you’re tall and you see a street magician in Florence, run the other way. I learned this the hard way.

We were on our way to the Uffizi, but had half an hour to kill before the timed slot on our tickets. So we stopped in the crowd in one of the big squares when this slick Italian magician started his show. He pulled an attractive American girl out of the audience and got her to participate in a card trick. She looked like she was on her way to a sophisticated evening out, wearing an elegant Satin Spaghetti-Strap Sundress. She could not stop giggling. but was a bit clueless. When, at the finale of his trick, he asked her "Is this your card?", she said she could not remember which card she had taken.
"This was my best trick!" he exclaimed with disappointment. And she apologised profusely for not remembering which card she took.

He then accidentally dropped one of his cards, and when she helpfully bent down to pick it up, he scooped her long sundress off her back, leaving her just in her matching black lingerie set. She let out a shocked yelp, and the audience gasped.

"Now you see why this was my best trick!" he exclaimed.
She cracked up laughing at the absurdity of it, and even agreed to wriggle her hips while the crowd cheered.

I turned to my wife and said, “She’s obviously a plant. No real tourist would agree to do that.”

Famous last words.

A minute later the magician spots me — all 6’4” of me — and hooks me around the neck with a big umbrella and starts dragging me forward through the crowd. The second I was pulled out in front of everyone, my stomach dropped. I thought, “Oh no… I am in serious trouble.”

He immediately hands both me and the half-naked woman a balloon each and tells us to blow them up. This seemed safe enough at the time. I thought I could just inflate it, and just leave if he escalated to anything outrageous.

She starts blowing hers up easily, no effort at all. I’m already nervous as hell with hundreds of people watching. But I can’t get mine started. I’m huffing and puffing like a complete idiot, blowing so hard my head feels like it will explode, while the balloon just sits there limp. The crowd is laughing, the magician is shaking his head, and I’m dying inside.

"You a big man! This much easier for you! Even sweet american girl can do it! Try more! Use lungs. Show you are strong man!"

I tried to blow even harder, giving it everything, and begin to feel confused. The sound of the crowd laughing became muffled, like I was underwater. And my knees start to feel heavy, my legs turning into jelly. I begin to stumble, when he catches me, takes the balloon from me, and just effortlessly inflates it in about two seconds, and shakes his head at me like I’m the most pathetic volunteer he’s ever had. The whole crowd were laughing at me. I have never been so humiliated.

Then he makes us both hold the balloons in front of us and lean forward in this stupid “about to dive” pose. I'm still dizzy and have trouble balancing while leaning forward far enough. He tells me to stretch forward further, then straightens my back, to get my back more horizontal, but I struggle to keep my balance. So he holds my body to "help" me get into the right position. Then suddenly, yank — before I even understood what he was doing, the shirt had been peeled up over my head.”

.

He was much shorter than me. Under normal circumstances, he could never have reached to pull my shirt over my head. But leaning forward, I was within his reach, unbalanced and helpless.

Next he has us raise the balloons straight up over our heads, arms stretched high. I am still dizzy and not standing straight enough. He tells me to hold the balloon higher. He comes in to help me "do it right". And then with one quick, practiced motion, he yanks my shorts all the way down to my ankles, leaving me standing there in just my underwear.

He then gave me a gentle shove, forcing me to stagger forward to regain my balance, inadvertently stepping out of my shorts, which he then picked up and deposited into his bag, which he then zipped up.

Now, you have to understand the sheer depth of my cosmic bad luck. It was the last day of my trip. All of my boxers, and everything vaguely presentable were dirty and sitting in the laundry bag back at the hotel. The absolute last resort left in my suitcase that morning was a pair of tight, deeply unfashionable white cotton Y-fronts.

There I was — tall, pale, and mortified — next to the girl in her matching black lingerie, balloons held high like idiots, while the entire square erupted in laughter and applause. Cameras were flashing everywhere. Everyone was getting photos of me in my Y-fronts. Except for my wife who stood in the crowd with her mouth open, too stunned to move. The magician milked it for a good while before giving us our clothes back. He even made us act as his underwear-clad assistants while he performed some magic. The whole routine could not have taken more than ten minutes, but it seemed an eternity; I’ve never been so embarrassed in my entire life. The crowd loved it though.

We abandoned our plans to visit the Uffizi and went back to our drab hotel room, where I spent the rest of the day totally defeated, sitting on the bed staring at our now expired €29 Uffizi tickets, while my wife sat opposite me in stunned silence.

Florence is beautiful. The Duomo, the Uffizi, the food — all incredible. But if you see a street magician working a crowd, do yourself a favor and keep walking. Especially if you’re tall.

Never volunteer.

Never.

TL;DR: I got dragged into a street magician's performance in Florence and ended up stripped to my underwear.