Card Shuffler
When I was really little, I didn’t know how to shuffle cards yet. I remember a card shuffler in the closet in my grandma’s house in Milwaukee. The house smelled like humid moth balls and the closets were damp treasure chests filled with gadgets I had never seen before. I played with this noisy contraption for the entire week we stayed in Wisconsin. I suddenly had something I didn’t have before I went to Wisconsin: the ability to shuffle cards.
Only grownups could shuffle cards.
It was the first time a gadget brought me to a level of adulthood that I didn’t really deserve and I really think something imprinted on my mind that day. I began to believe in the mantra:
Gadgets will make me a better person.
Today, I don’t know if that mantra is true or not, but it still chants in my head sometimes. I have found myself believing that gadgets will make me smart, thin, beautiful and popular. My belief in them has made me feel all those things when I’ve purchased a new toy. The problem is, it never lasts and once the shine wears off my new toy, I need another one to make me feel smart, thin, beautiful or popular.
I eventually learned how to shuffle cards on my own without the help of a card shuffler. The mathematician in me didn’t like the systematic mixing of the card shuffler. It wasn’t random enough and hand shuffling seemed better in comparison. Card shuffling was a right of passage in our family and for a brief moment, a gadget brought me one step closer to adulthood and made an impression on me that would last for years.