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Going down the cereal aisle is like proposing.  It seems simple enough—then you get there and realize that the choice is daunting, and you might be stuck with whatever you choose for a long time.  I don't want to be trapped eating "Reeses… for breakfast!" for however many weeks it would take me to work my way through the box.  Sure, it's exciting at first to have a cool new cereal, but after about eight days,  you forget and leave the bag open in the box by accident and everything gets chewy.

I pick up a box of Cheerios and consider my cholesterol for a moment, then glance at my watch for the time.  It's 5:45, and I have a date tonight at seven.  It's with a guy I've been dating for a while, a Puerto Rican named Gabriel I met at a newsstand a couple of weeks ago.

We met as I clicked my tongue at a particularly horrendous picture of Meg Ryan on a rag-mag, the headline reading something along the lines of "Surgery:  Does She Need it or Has She Had it Already?"  Honestly, I may be a little biased, considering I'm a closet Meg fan—aside from Kate and Leopold—but I never really approve of the "sans-makeup" or "look-how-fat-she's-gotten" magazine covers.  Sure, it's their job to be famous and beautiful, but only in movies, right?

Anyway, he was standing behind me, and he said, "Why do they do that?  I love Meg."  His smile was charming—wide-mouthed and genuine.  He had huge teeth, which is why he hasn't given me a blowjob yet; I'm a little scared.

"…She's okay," I'd replied, not revealing my secret as readily as he had.  "I don't like how they do this, either, though."

"I know!  I look like crap before my makeup in the morning."  I felt my eyebrows raise and I cocked a tentative smile, which he matched.

We got to talking and I ended up buying the magazine.  Gabe asked what I was doing that night.  "Nothing," I said.  "Good," he said, and that night, we went to see Serious Moonlight in Meg's honor.  We've only been out a couple more times since then, but tonight is my fourth date with Gabe, and since I'm an impatient guy, I know we're going to screw around a little, so I'm feeling nervous.

"Robert?"  A familiar voice snaps me out of my remember-when-two-weeks-ago mode, and I take in a small breath, my gaze sliding to settle on a spot just below my right elbow.  I don't want to turn around and acknowledge the person behind me, because I know it's George.  George and I were together for three months before he found out I was a wizard.  A wizard that likes cock—my batting average for life has got to be better than Babe Ruth's, although I don't know much about baseball, so maybe I shouldn't make assumptions.

George is a real drama queen.  There are many different types of queens; hell, there are subgenres.  But George is one of the classics:  the drama queen.  I hate using gay terminology sometimes.  It makes me feel like less of a man.  Sure, I'm homosexual, but it's not as though I put on feather boas and mouth Darren Hayes songs like George used to; his favorite was "Pop!ular."

George loves a scene.  He used to throw these outrageous fits, the topic of which ran the gamut from "Robert, why won't you let me adopt my Asian rice-baby?!" to "I thought you loved me!  Why won't you marry me?!"  Both of these were, of course, completely outlandish, since we only dated for about a season, but the sex was good enough and I was feeling lonely, so Groberge continued to remain our collective name until a little while ago.

And here he is, edging toward my back in the cereal aisle of the Safeway down the street from my apartment building.  "Hey," I venture as indifferently as I can.  I go back to staring intently at the wall of Frosted Flakes and various types of Cheerios in front of me in an attempt to make George go away--maybe he'll think I'm so wrapped-up in an intense inner battle over whether I want lower cholesterol or to lose two inches off my waistline over the next four weeks and he will go away.

Unfortunately for me, as I should have known anyway, George is like taxes or HIV:  one of those things that doesn't go away if you just close your eyes and hope hard enough.  "'Hey'?  That's all I get?  A 'hey'?  I haven't seen you for four months, and you can't even muster the balls to call me by my name?!"  George is boiling with rage behind me already; and here I was hoping that he could just disappear.

"George—there are people nearby," I say, turning around to face my fears.  I can feel a tightening just above my stomach, and my face is already starting to get a little hot, but I might as well deal with this before it gets out of hand, like the day he broke up with me.

I have a magical cleaning service.  It's cheap for me, because my father is a member of the Wizard Council, but I never talk to him.  Anyway, the cleaning service is these little elf-things that appear in your living room and do mundane chores.  They come once a month, whenever they want, and if you call their hotline, the phone will burst into flames.  It's a counter-spell, to keep people who aren't of the wizarding community from calling, but since no one can call their hotline anyway, I don't see why they even bother having one.

So if you have a customer-service problem, like scheduling issues or the fact that they're fucking elves and you're dating a person who has no idea your wand is built into your cell phone, you're just going to have to catch one of the elves when he's walking by.  This is hard, considering that, not only are they small, but they're magical, and if you do catch one, he just gives you this look.  They're a lot like the people at the DMV, except they bite.

The day George found out about my wizard-ness, he and I were having a fight over whether or not I'd attend a Pride parade with him, and things were getting heated.

"George," I'd said, "you know how I feel about that kind of stuff.  Put your shirt back on."

He was wearing a pair of rainbow ass-huggers, white go-go boots, and a red feather-boa—yes, people really are this flamboyant, especially at Pride parades.  In his hand was a pack of yellow body paint.  "Yeah, I know you're a coward who's ashamed of the way he was born, Robert!" he'd yelled, squeezing some of the paint onto his hand with a fart sound that I would laugh at if he weren't cutting me to the quick.

"If I'm ashamed of anything right now, George, it's your hooker shoes."  I felt a tickle at my leg and leaned down to scratch it, glaring at George as he began to smear the yellow paint across his left nipple in a diagonal line.  "Maybe I don't like advertising that I'm gay, but maybe I don't like parading around in my underwear in front of a bunch of people I don't know.  People have nightmares about this kind of stuff!"

George closed the paint; the top snapped shut and he opened his mouth to respond, then dropped the bottle and covered his mouth with a hand.  "Wh-a-at the fuck is that?!"

I looked down to see one of the elves brushing my leg with his ear as he removed his gear from a little bag to clean up the mess George had made with his paints.

Our relationship ended with the explanation that I was a wizard and that, although I was a neat freak, the elves were the ones who kept the house mostly clean for me.  It was a tough decision, telling him I was a wizard, but when the only memory-loss spell I knew involved a high risk of death by cerebellum detachment, I bit the bullet and told him.  George left in a confused huff and broke up with me over the phone later that day—yes, over my wand-phone.

I don't know why George is even bothering to talk to me today; maybe he's finally come to terms with the fact that I have the power to turn toads into butterflies—however useful that is.

"Oh, so there are people nearby?" George mocks, settling his hands on his hips.  "Are there?  I didn't notice."  His lower lip is sticking out, and he's looking at me out of the corners of heavy-lidded eyes.  Contrary to what Twilight fans may think, it doesn't look very sexy when people give this look—it's actually very, very annoying.

I know it's not a good idea, but I'm tired of his shit.  He broke up with me; isn't this backwards?  "There are, George, and I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't come up behind me just to yell at me.  Don't be such a drama queen."

"Drama queen?!  It's nice that you think you're the 'victim,' or whatever, Robert, but you're the one who's a selfish old witch!"

"Wizard," I correct under my breath, glancing around as one of my hands finds its way to my hairline, playing with my bangs nervously.

"Whatever!  I'm glad I didn't stay with you, Harry Potter!  Fly away on your Nimbus 2000 and out of my life!"  George's hands fly from his hips into the air, narrowly missing my chest, and now he's storming out of the Safeway.

After a moment of slight shock, I realize the young mother at the end of the aisle is staring at me; I abandon my groceries in favor of ducking out in shame.

---

I'm out on the street, and all I can see of George is the back of his bright-orange shirt as he turns a corner.  I can't help but be a little grateful that we aren't dating anymore.  The tips of my ears are still sort of burning, and I cover them with my hands, pretending that I'm just cold and don't want the wind in my ears as I start walking back down the street to my apartment complex.

Looking around, I can see the sun setting over a Bank of America; I almost stop to marvel, or maybe come up with some cool sort of simile, perhaps attempt to redefine the overused symbol of the sunset, when I remember my date later and check my watch again.

My pace quickens.  The Safeway is about four blocks away from my apartment complex.  I have just enough time to take a shower and throw a bunch of clothes around in a frenzy—perfect.  Thinking about my date reminds me of when I used to be with George.  He was always telling me how much he loved me; I never knew how to respond, so maybe it was a good thing he broke up with me, but I never really felt the urge to say, "I love you, too."

I've often wondered if I'm capable of truly loving someone.  It's so easy to say, "I love this person.  We're dating, so I love him," but to really love someone is hard.  I'm kind of a loner, emotionally; I have been ever since entering my slut phase in college—friends called me "Ribbert," because I "leapt at the chance."  Actually, one guy said I had a "sticky tongue," but I think the "leaping" version sounds a lot less trashy.

Back in my Ribbert days—class of '96!  Go Cougars!—I came up with a test to see if a relationship was worthwhile, and I still use it today—it might be time to update the system, but so far, it's been serving me well.  If I get to it, around the fifth or sixth date, I ask myself, "If so-and-so died today, what would be my reaction?"  After a careful thought process, my response usually turns out to be "I hope his family doesn't invite me to the funeral."

I wish black suits weren't required at funerals.  Wearing the suit again makes me think of death, and it makes me not want to wear it anymore.  It's a big waste of money, and it's not fair that that's what dead people are making us wear, but they've been doing it since before Jesus, so I guess I shouldn't let it bother me so much.  Then again, people have been persecuting gays since before Jesus, too, so maybe I should care more.

Feeling my jacket pocket buzz, I pull out my phone and slide the antenna out of the top; it's sort of a reflex, to get ready to perform a spell, even if I'm just getting a text.  My phone is a late-nineties model brick of a Nokia that I picked up a couple of years after college.  It's no Droid, but I infused it with my magic a week or two after I bought it, transferring it from the wand my dad made for me when I was in middle school, and now I'm bound to it.  The only reason I haven't invested in a new type of phone, besides the fact that I'm scared to make the switch with my magic, is that most of the newer ones don't come with antennae, and the ones that do are really girly.

It still gets texts, though, and this one reads, "we still on for tnite? – Gabberjaw."  It's from Gabe; I bet his fag-hags call him Gabberjaw.  I know he has at least one:  a talkative, chubby girl in her early twenties that came as a third wheel on our second date, claiming hers cancelled but that she didn't mind tagging along.

I select "Reply" with the oversized arrow keys and type out, "yeah. 8 ocock right?"  I hate texting because I always take a long time to get my message out, and I'm sort of a grammar snob sometimes, but I'd rather text than call.  By the time I realize that I said "ocock" instead of "oclock," it's too late to push "End," and Gabe's already sent me the swift retort, "o? cock? if ur good. – Gabberjaw."

Like most people who text while they're trying to get somewhere in a hurry, a trash can collides with my mid-thighs and my phone slips out of my hand into the can.  "Jesus…." I grumble, upon the discovery that the phone landed between a Big Mac and what looks like a clump of hair…. Oh, Seattle.

There's no time to reflect on how interesting my home town is, though, and being the resourceful person I am, I grab two pens from my coat pocket and reach down into the trash can with them.  On my first attempt at trapping the phone between the pens, I fail, and it falls back on top of the hair—or whatever it is.  The second attempt is a little more fruitful, but the "special sauce"—which is really thousand-island dressing with dill in it, right?—from the Big Mac got all over the keypad of my phone, and it slips between my makeshift chopsticks back into the can.

I'm starting to get frustrated now.  Really?  Is it really this hard to get a phone out of a trash can?  …But I'm steadfast against not touching it.  The hair and the Big Mac aren't the only things in the can; they seem to have made friends with a stack of unwanted business papers and a ton of bird shit, not to mention the remains of a busted beer bottle and a lot of gum.  My phone's buzzing again, making the hair it's sitting on move in a morbidly humorous way, and from what I can make out through the special sauce, there's a sad face in the text I got.

With one last, valiant effort, my pen chopsticks work, and, using the emergency napkin I keep in my wallet, coupled with the hand sanitizer I keep in my coat, the phone is safe enough to read.  Apparently, Gabe had said, "u there?  : ( – Gabberjaw."  I quickly—well, Robert-pace—type out, "yeah. dropped my phone. sry."

The apartment complex is just a couple of feet from the trash can, and the doorman smiles at me knowingly as I wave a quick "hello" and lament over my disgusting phone.  The antenna's a little bent; I jab at the "Up" arrow beside the elevator, studying my wand-phone, feeling my chest tighten a little with worry as I attempt to push the antenna back inside.

With a ding, the elevator arrives, and one of my neighbors, a sweet, older black woman who brought me flowers after my break-up with George, steps out with her beagle in her arms and gives me a nod in greeting.  "Things okay?" she asks, and wiggles her forefinger at the area between her eyebrows, smiling tenderly.
Now I realize my eyebrows are creasing together anxiously and I let my face relax a little.  "Going great, Mrs. Johnson."

"You need to unwind, Robert," Mrs. Johnson says, and walks off, tsking me as she leaves.
I wish I could take Mrs. Johnson's advice, but now I barely have time to take a shower, let alone throw my clothes around in a frenzy.  I press "4" maybe a couple more times than necessary, and I don't bother to hold the elevator for a girl in horn-rimmed glasses, both because I don't have the time and because I think horn-rimmed glasses are ugly.

As the elevator lurches upward, I begin wondering what I should wear on my date with Gabe.  We don't know where we're going yet, but he usually shows up in a T-shirt and jeans, and if we're going to screw on this date, I'm going to need to pick something without buttons, shirt-wise.  I've had enough bad experiences with ruined button-downs—no, it's not just in romance novels.  Overzealous lovers have ruined my shirts one-too-many times, and I have no idea how to sew.  Even if I did, I wouldn't take the time.

The elevator brings me to my floor and I rush to my apartment, power-walking-style, key out, ready to bust it open.  Once I get to my door, 4E, I put my key in the lock, turn it, and the doorknob turns into a cookie.  Shit.

Taking out my phone, the screen is scrambled and the backlight is purple.  I'm afraid to slide out the antenna, but I do anyway, and the doorknob, thankfully, becomes a doorknob again.  Even if I turn off the phone, the magic still works; it's in the antenna, not AT&T.

This is absurd.  I don't have time for this.  I set the phone on my bed and shed my clothes on my way into the bathroom, praying that nothing happens, but since it's my life, and my life seems to be harder than the average gay wizard's, I doubt everything will be okay when I get out.

A quick shampoo and an Irish Spring later, my phone is still lying on the bed—which is still a bed, by some miracle.  I decide to keep the bathroom door open as I shave, to keep a better eye on my Nokia, but shaving is something you have to pay attention to as you do it.  I'd rather meet Gabe with a 5 o'clock shadow than looking like an eighth-grader who got ahold of his dad's razor.

I walk into the bedroom and toss my towel on the floor; I'll deal with it later.  The clock on my nightstand reads 6:46, and I know Gabe is going to get here early, because he likes to walk fast.  "I like a spring in my step!" he exclaimed to me once, before slowing down for me to catch up.

Glancing at my phone as I step into a pair of boxer briefs, I can see that it's still purple and scrambled.  I allow the waistband of my underwear to snap against my hips with a smirk, then realize that they might be lame, and that Gabe might see them later.  They're Calvin Kleins—acceptable.

Just as I'm about to decide between jeans or slacks, there's a knock at my front door.

"Yeah?" I call, praying that it's Mrs. Johnson and her beagle, but the voice I get in response is a man's—Gabe's.

"Robert?  I slipped in with some high-schooler and his mom.  Can I come in?"

"Yeah, one second."  Fuck.  I grab the closest pair of pants I can find, and they turn into a cookie.  Towel it is, then.  Wrapping the towel around my waist, I make my way out of my bedroom and over to the door.

I flip the deadbolt and pull the door open, faced with a cheery grin and an "I knew I was early," as Gabe pushes past me into the apartment, looking around.  He's never seen it before now; usually, I pick him up for dates or we meet somewhere.

Gabe doesn't seem to mind the fact that I'm in a towel as he heads over to my TV and starts looking at the chachke and pictures scattered on and around it, but I do, so while he inspects a photo of my mother and father from the late 80s, I scoot back into the bedroom, where the small pile of sugar cookies that used to be my beside lamp is waiting for me—as though I weren't nervous enough about tonight.

Until Gabe came along, I'd been planning on entering my nun phase.  Thirty-five is old in Gay Years; we age a little like dogs, except it's two gay years to every straight year.  Now that my slut phase is past—and it has been for a while—it's getting close to the time that I settle down and become a lonely, snippety queen with at least two cats.  This is my worst nightmare, and I'm glad that Gabe going on more than two dates with me and not asking for money made me realize that I'm still desirable.

This isn't to say that I'm undesirable, necessarily; I have a generally good muscular tone, and although my hairline is receding a little, I haven't started going bald yet.  Still, though, I can't help but be a little hard on myself when I look in the mirror because I wouldn't date me.  It probably goes back to my horrible relationship with my mother or some other clichéd reason like that, but the reason isn't what's bothering me.  It's the situation of being gay.

My homosexuality bothers me more than being a wizard.  Sure, it's strange to be able to perform transformation spells and brew potions, but it bothers me when people find out I'm gay and they say, "I thought something was off about you."  I like to think I'm a regular person, and that although people like George exist, I'm not one of them—even if I do insist on dating them.  As far as the stereotype, I have no idea how many times Liza Minnelli's been married, and Broadway musicals are not the flame to my moth.  Sure, I go to the gym enough, but it's because I like to be healthy; sometimes I sneak looking at the more muscular trainers, though.

I can't help the way I was born—wizard or gay—but I also can't help but want to keep both of these facts secret, the wizardry because I sound insane when I mention it to non-wizards, the gay because I don't like people associating me with "gay culture."
What is gay culture, really?  Society is so heterocentric that it seems as though gay culture has become something like a running joke among both gays and non-gays; homosexual men have become effeminate, shirtless shopaholics that speak with a lisp and wax their chests.

Speaking of being naked, I pick a pair of black slacks and step into them, glaring at my phone as if to tell it to leave them alone.

The phone seems to be listening—or maybe it's forgotten to ruin things for now, because it's just sitting quietly on the bed, minding its own business.  I reapply my deodorant, a scent of Degree Men called "Clean Reaction."

"Is this your mom?" Gabe calls from the living room.  "She looks nice."

"She's not," I answer, and pull on a gray t-shirt.  "I mean, she is, but only if you don't come out to her."

Gabe responds with a bark of laughter and I can hear him clattering around with more of my stuff.  A couple of minutes later, as I pull on a jacket, Gabe turns on the TV and flips to The Jeffersons.  I start to like him a little more as he guffaws at a Florence quip.

He looks up at I enter the living room in bare feet, carrying my socks.  "Hey, how hungry are you?  Answer on a scale from one to ten.  Because right now, I'm…" he pauses to check an invisible hunger watch.  "Right now, I'm at a three."

Now that I think about it, I'm not too hungry.  Before I left for the grocery store, I had a muffin, and I ate an entire bag of popcorn sometime after lunch—not to mention the piles of cookies in the bedroom that are available for the feasting now.  "Uh… I guess I'd say a four or five?"

"Good.  Then take off your jacket and come sit with me.  I'll put your socks on."  Until now, Gabe's been lounging on my couch like a jaguar on a tree branch, but he sits up and pats the seat next to him.

I accept his invitation and he takes my socks, getting to his knees on the floor to slip them on my feet.  "You've got good feet," he says, and wiggles my second toe; I fight the urge to chuckle, but I can feel my face screwing up a little into my "I'm-being-tickled" expression—a goofy half-grin accompanied by a gentle scrunching-up of my eyes.  Luckily for me, Gabe isn't looking up as he continues to speak.

"Did you know that if your second toe is longer than your big toe, they say it means you're smart?"  He pulls the socks over my feet and pats my knee, getting back on the couch and looking to me for a response.

"I guess I'm pretty smart, then."

"Yeah, really smart.  That sucker's practically a half-inch longer than the other one.  If you ever run a race, do it barefoot.  In a photo finish, your weirdo toe might win it."  He stops, eyes flickering to the TV as a commercial for Doritos starts playing.  "I love this one!"

We watch the commercial together, and when it's over, the Jeffersons are back, and Buzz Thatcher is proposing to Florence.  Gabe leans against me, and I enjoy the moment.  His hair looks nice; a more poetic person would call it something along the lines of a dusty chocolate color, and it curls around his face, thicker than mine has ever been.  I feel a little jealous, but I run my fingers through it anyway, looking down at Gabe to determine his reaction.  He just sighs lightly and settles a hand on my thigh, eyes fixed on the TV.

"What would you do if I told you I was a wizard?"  The words come out slowly, as though my own mouth doesn't believe I'm trying to tell him such an intimate secret.

Gabe releases a cheery snort and rubs my thigh.  "I would ask you if you'd ever been involved in a wizard battle."

"Well, I'm a wizard."

He sits up.  "Have you ever been involved in a wizard battle?"

"You believe me?"

"…That depends.  Have you?"

With a blink, I try to make sense of what Gabe's asking.  "Wait.  Have I what?"

"Wizard-battled.  I mean, have you ever been involved in a wizard battle?"  Gabe twists some of his hair around his forefinger, his eyes steady on me.

"Uh… not really, no."

Gabe settles back against me with a pout.  "That sucks…." he says.

"Am I that uninteresting?  Because I've never been in a battle with another wizard, I'm boring?"

"What?  Not really, but I was kind of hoping, because Sword in the Stone is my favorite Disney movie, and I was going to say, 'Rule Two:  no make-believe things like, pink dragons and stuff.'"

I look down at my socks and run my tongue over my lips.  "So you don't care if I'm magical?"

"Am I supposed to?  Wait, you're not serious, are you?" Gabe asks; he manages to rip his gaze from the TV long enough to give me a look of incredulity.

I wiggle my toes a second before answering.  "Yeah, I am.  My dad's a wizard, too."

"You are not."  He watches me a moment before speaking again.  "I mean, you're talking about like, LARPing or something, right?  Or D&D?"

"No.  I have a wand, and I put spells on things, and I can brew potions.  My stuff has been turning into cookies for the past couple of hours.  It's a big secret of mine.  I probably shouldn't have told you."  With every new word, I realize I'm sounding more and more delusional, and I wish I had kept my mouth shut, but it's too late now.

Gabe's giving me a look that he probably thinks is understanding, but his eyes are a little glazed, and the way his eyebrows are slightly raised and wrinkling in confusion suggests his concern for my sanity.  "Cookies?" he asks, and puts a hand to my forehead.

"Yeah, cookies."  I pull away from his hand and stand up.  "I'm being serious, here.  My last boyfriend broke up with me over this because he couldn't handle it.  Just… let's just watch TV.  Forget I said anything."

He turns back to watch what's become a Sanford and Son rerun.  "But if you're a wizard, then why aren't you trying harder to prove it?" he asks.

"Because I'm ashamed of myself for even mentioning it, thinking that you, a normal… how old are you again?"

"Twenty-six."

"…Thinking that a normal twenty-six-year-old guy was going to believe me in the first place."  I don't want to look at him, but I can feel his eyes on me.  Rubbing my own eyes with my thumb and forefinger rectifies the situation, but it doesn't take away from the amount of embarrassment I'm feeling.  "I can't even imagine someone telling me something like this.  You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

"I asked you to prove it, didn't I?" Gabe says, and I feel the weight of a hesitant hand on my shoulder blade.

I peer up at Gabe, who's smiling uncertainly.  "There's nothing I can do that would make you believe me."

"Do you have a wand?"

I nod.

"Go get it.  Show me magic!"  Gabe waves his arms, wiggling his fingers with a huge grin.

I get up and heave a sigh, shuffling into the bedroom and lamenting at the missing armoire; my clothes are lying in a pile of what looks like lawn clippings.  I grab my phone with two fingers, mindful of its power, and carry it into the living room.  "This is it," I say, and set it on the coffee table.

"That's a cell phone."

"Yeah.  I infused it with my magic after college.  It's easier if you need to suddenly whip it out and perform a spell."

"That's awesome!  So do a spell."

Looking down at the phone, I realize the screen's gone bright yellow.  "I don't know if that's such a good idea.  Remember when you were texting me earlier and I said I dropped my phone?  It fell in a trash can between this burger and this gross… thing.  I think it was ha—"

The coffee table turns into a glass dog and waddles as fast as it can into the bedroom, barking.  I think it's in the bathroom, because a clinking noise like glass hitting tile is coming from the bedroom, and the dog's barks are echoing slightly.
Gabe bursts into laughter.  "You really are a wizard?"  He stands up and disappears into my bedroom, but he's back a couple seconds later, slamming my bedroom door behind him.  "How did you do that?"

I haven't been so adventurous as to try to pick my phone up off the floor from where it fell off my coffee-table-dog, but I'm worried it's going to do something worse.  "Maybe you should go.  It's not safe here."

"Safe?  Rob, this is one of the best dates I've ever been on.  You can be a wizard if you want, but I'm just a Puerto Rican."  Gabe ruffles my hair and looks down at my cell phone.  "That's your wand, huh?  How do you fix it?"

My gaze joins Gabe's, watching the phone.  "It's kind of like a computer that keeps restarting itself.  I need to extract my magic and put it into something else, but I have to be really careful, or it could malfunction and I could be missing a lot of my powers."

"I need to stop you there, Rob."  Gabe is wrapping his arms around me; he slips his hands into my pockets.  "I believe you, okay?  But this shit sounds way too funny."

"How can you believe me?  I just told you I'm a wizard!"

Gabe chews on his bottom lip for a second; his arms are still slack around my torso.  "'How?'  You just turned a fucking coffee table into a dog."

"You're a dick."

;) (Wink) — Description
Going down the cereal aisle is like proposing.  It seems simple enough—then you get there and realize that the choice is daunting, and you might be stuck with whatever you choose for a long time.  I don't want to be trapped eating "Reeses… for breakfast!" for however many weeks it would take me to work my way through the box.  Sure, it's exciting at first to have a cool new cereal, but after about eight days,  you forget and leave the bag open in the box by accident and everything gets chewy.

I pick up a box of Cheerios and consider my cholesterol for a moment, then glance at my watch for the time.  It's 5:45, and I have a date tonight at seven.  It's with a guy I've been dating for a while, a Puerto Rican named Gabriel I met at a newsstand a couple of weeks ago.

We met as I clicked my tongue at a particularly horrendous picture of Meg Ryan on a rag-mag, the headline reading something along the lines of "Surgery:  Does She Need it or Has She Had it Already?"  Honestly, I may be a little biased, considering I'm a closet Meg fan—aside from Kate and Leopold—but I never really approve of the "sans-makeup" or "look-how-fat-she's-gotten" magazine covers.  Sure, it's their job to be famous and beautiful, but only in movies, right?

Anyway, he was standing behind me, and he said, "Why do they do that?  I love Meg."  His smile was charming—wide-mouthed and genuine.  He had huge teeth, which is why he hasn't given me a blowjob yet; I'm a little scared.

"…She's okay," I'd replied, not revealing my secret as readily as he had.  "I don't like how they do this, either, though."

"I know!  I look like crap before my makeup in the morning."  I felt my eyebrows raise and I cocked a tentative smile, which he matched.

We got to talking and I ended up buying the magazine.  Gabe asked what I was doing that night.  "Nothing," I said.  "Good," he said, and that night, we went to see Serious Moonlight in Meg's honor.  We've only been out a couple more times since then, but tonight is my fourth date with Gabe, and since I'm an impatient guy, I know we're going to screw around a little, so I'm feeling nervous.

"Robert?"  A familiar voice snaps me out of my remember-when-two-weeks-ago mode, and I take in a small breath, my gaze sliding to settle on a spot just below my right elbow.  I don't want to turn around and acknowledge the person behind me, because I know it's George.  George and I were together for three months before he found out I was a wizard.  A wizard that likes cock—my batting average for life has got to be better than Babe Ruth's, although I don't know much about baseball, so maybe I shouldn't make assumptions.

George is a real drama queen.  There are many different types of queens; hell, there are subgenres.  But George is one of the classics:  the drama queen.  I hate using gay terminology sometimes.  It makes me feel like less of a man.  Sure, I'm homosexual, but it's not as though I put on feather boas and mouth Darren Hayes songs like George used to; his favorite was "Pop!ular."

George loves a scene.  He used to throw these outrageous fits, the topic of which ran the gamut from "Robert, why won't you let me adopt my Asian rice-baby?!" to "I thought you loved me!  Why won't you marry me?!"  Both of these were, of course, completely outlandish, since we only dated for about a season, but the sex was good enough and I was feeling lonely, so Groberge continued to remain our collective name until a little while ago.

And here he is, edging toward my back in the cereal aisle of the Safeway down the street from my apartment building.  "Hey," I venture as indifferently as I can.  I go back to staring intently at the wall of Frosted Flakes and various types of Cheerios in front of me in an attempt to make George go away--maybe he'll think I'm so wrapped-up in an intense inner battle over whether I want lower cholesterol or to lose two inches off my waistline over the next four weeks and he will go away.

Unfortunately for me, as I should have known anyway, George is like taxes or HIV:  one of those things that doesn't go away if you just close your eyes and hope hard enough.  "'Hey'?  That's all I get?  A 'hey'?  I haven't seen you for four months, and you can't even muster the balls to call me by my name?!"  George is boiling with rage behind me already; and here I was hoping that he could just disappear.

"George—there are people nearby," I say, turning around to face my fears.  I can feel a tightening just above my stomach, and my face is already starting to get a little hot, but I might as well deal with this before it gets out of hand, like the day he broke up with me.

I have a magical cleaning service.  It's cheap for me, because my father is a member of the Wizard Council, but I never talk to him.  Anyway, the cleaning service is these little elf-things that appear in your living room and do mundane chores.  They come once a month, whenever they want, and if you call their hotline, the phone will burst into flames.  It's a counter-spell, to keep people who aren't of the wizarding community from calling, but since no one can call their hotline anyway, I don't see why they even bother having one.

So if you have a customer-service problem, like scheduling issues or the fact that they're fucking elves and you're dating a person who has no idea your wand is built into your cell phone, you're just going to have to catch one of the elves when he's walking by.  This is hard, considering that, not only are they small, but they're magical, and if you do catch one, he just gives you this look.  They're a lot like the people at the DMV, except they bite.

The day George found out about my wizard-ness, he and I were having a fight over whether or not I'd attend a Pride parade with him, and things were getting heated.

"George," I'd said, "you know how I feel about that kind of stuff.  Put your shirt back on."

He was wearing a pair of rainbow ass-huggers, white go-go boots, and a red feather-boa—yes, people really are this flamboyant, especially at Pride parades.  In his hand was a pack of yellow body paint.  "Yeah, I know you're a coward who's ashamed of the way he was born, Robert!" he'd yelled, squeezing some of the paint onto his hand with a fart sound that I would laugh at if he weren't cutting me to the quick.

"If I'm ashamed of anything right now, George, it's your hooker shoes."  I felt a tickle at my leg and leaned down to scratch it, glaring at George as he began to smear the yellow paint across his left nipple in a diagonal line.  "Maybe I don't like advertising that I'm gay, but maybe I don't like parading around in my underwear in front of a bunch of people I don't know.  People have nightmares about this kind of stuff!"

George closed the paint; the top snapped shut and he opened his mouth to respond, then dropped the bottle and covered his mouth with a hand.  "Wh-a-at the fuck is that?!"

I looked down to see one of the elves brushing my leg with his ear as he removed his gear from a little bag to clean up the mess George had made with his paints.

Our relationship ended with the explanation that I was a wizard and that, although I was a neat freak, the elves were the ones who kept the house mostly clean for me.  It was a tough decision, telling him I was a wizard, but when the only memory-loss spell I knew involved a high risk of death by cerebellum detachment, I bit the bullet and told him.  George left in a confused huff and broke up with me over the phone later that day—yes, over my wand-phone.

I don't know why George is even bothering to talk to me today; maybe he's finally come to terms with the fact that I have the power to turn toads into butterflies—however useful that is.

"Oh, so there are people nearby?" George mocks, settling his hands on his hips.  "Are there?  I didn't notice."  His lower lip is sticking out, and he's looking at me out of the corners of heavy-lidded eyes.  Contrary to what Twilight fans may think, it doesn't look very sexy when people give this look—it's actually very, very annoying.

I know it's not a good idea, but I'm tired of his shit.  He broke up with me; isn't this backwards?  "There are, George, and I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't come up behind me just to yell at me.  Don't be such a drama queen."

"Drama queen?!  It's nice that you think you're the 'victim,' or whatever, Robert, but you're the one who's a selfish old witch!"

"Wizard," I correct under my breath, glancing around as one of my hands finds its way to my hairline, playing with my bangs nervously.

"Whatever!  I'm glad I didn't stay with you, Harry Potter!  Fly away on your Nimbus 2000 and out of my life!"  George's hands fly from his hips into the air, narrowly missing my chest, and now he's storming out of the Safeway.

After a moment of slight shock, I realize the young mother at the end of the aisle is staring at me; I abandon my groceries in favor of ducking out in shame.

---

I'm out on the street, and all I can see of George is the back of his bright-orange shirt as he turns a corner.  I can't help but be a little grateful that we aren't dating anymore.  The tips of my ears are still sort of burning, and I cover them with my hands, pretending that I'm just cold and don't want the wind in my ears as I start walking back down the street to my apartment complex.

Looking around, I can see the sun setting over a Bank of America; I almost stop to marvel, or maybe come up with some cool sort of simile, perhaps attempt to redefine the overused symbol of the sunset, when I remember my date later and check my watch again.

My pace quickens.  The Safeway is about four blocks away from my apartment complex.  I have just enough time to take a shower and throw a bunch of clothes around in a frenzy—perfect.  Thinking about my date reminds me of when I used to be with George.  He was always telling me how much he loved me; I never knew how to respond, so maybe it was a good thing he broke up with me, but I never really felt the urge to say, "I love you, too."

I've often wondered if I'm capable of truly loving someone.  It's so easy to say, "I love this person.  We're dating, so I love him," but to really love someone is hard.  I'm kind of a loner, emotionally; I have been ever since entering my slut phase in college—friends called me "Ribbert," because I "leapt at the chance."  Actually, one guy said I had a "sticky tongue," but I think the "leaping" version sounds a lot less trashy.

Back in my Ribbert days—class of '96!  Go Cougars!—I came up with a test to see if a relationship was worthwhile, and I still use it today—it might be time to update the system, but so far, it's been serving me well.  If I get to it, around the fifth or sixth date, I ask myself, "If so-and-so died today, what would be my reaction?"  After a careful thought process, my response usually turns out to be "I hope his family doesn't invite me to the funeral."

I wish black suits weren't required at funerals.  Wearing the suit again makes me think of death, and it makes me not want to wear it anymore.  It's a big waste of money, and it's not fair that that's what dead people are making us wear, but they've been doing it since before Jesus, so I guess I shouldn't let it bother me so much.  Then again, people have been persecuting gays since before Jesus, too, so maybe I should care more.

Feeling my jacket pocket buzz, I pull out my phone and slide the antenna out of the top; it's sort of a reflex, to get ready to perform a spell, even if I'm just getting a text.  My phone is a late-nineties model brick of a Nokia that I picked up a couple of years after college.  It's no Droid, but I infused it with my magic a week or two after I bought it, transferring it from the wand my dad made for me when I was in middle school, and now I'm bound to it.  The only reason I haven't invested in a new type of phone, besides the fact that I'm scared to make the switch with my magic, is that most of the newer ones don't come with antennae, and the ones that do are really girly.

It still gets texts, though, and this one reads, "we still on for tnite? – Gabberjaw."  It's from Gabe; I bet his fag-hags call him Gabberjaw.  I know he has at least one:  a talkative, chubby girl in her early twenties that came as a third wheel on our second date, claiming hers cancelled but that she didn't mind tagging along.

I select "Reply" with the oversized arrow keys and type out, "yeah. 8 ocock right?"  I hate texting because I always take a long time to get my message out, and I'm sort of a grammar snob sometimes, but I'd rather text than call.  By the time I realize that I said "ocock" instead of "oclock," it's too late to push "End," and Gabe's already sent me the swift retort, "o? cock? if ur good. – Gabberjaw."

Like most people who text while they're trying to get somewhere in a hurry, a trash can collides with my mid-thighs and my phone slips out of my hand into the can.  "Jesus…." I grumble, upon the discovery that the phone landed between a Big Mac and what looks like a clump of hair…. Oh, Seattle.

There's no time to reflect on how interesting my home town is, though, and being the resourceful person I am, I grab two pens from my coat pocket and reach down into the trash can with them.  On my first attempt at trapping the phone between the pens, I fail, and it falls back on top of the hair—or whatever it is.  The second attempt is a little more fruitful, but the "special sauce"—which is really thousand-island dressing with dill in it, right?—from the Big Mac got all over the keypad of my phone, and it slips between my makeshift chopsticks back into the can.

I'm starting to get frustrated now.  Really?  Is it really this hard to get a phone out of a trash can?  …But I'm steadfast against not touching it.  The hair and the Big Mac aren't the only things in the can; they seem to have made friends with a stack of unwanted business papers and a ton of bird shit, not to mention the remains of a busted beer bottle and a lot of gum.  My phone's buzzing again, making the hair it's sitting on move in a morbidly humorous way, and from what I can make out through the special sauce, there's a sad face in the text I got.

With one last, valiant effort, my pen chopsticks work, and, using the emergency napkin I keep in my wallet, coupled with the hand sanitizer I keep in my coat, the phone is safe enough to read.  Apparently, Gabe had said, "u there?  : ( – Gabberjaw."  I quickly—well, Robert-pace—type out, "yeah. dropped my phone. sry."

The apartment complex is just a couple of feet from the trash can, and the doorman smiles at me knowingly as I wave a quick "hello" and lament over my disgusting phone.  The antenna's a little bent; I jab at the "Up" arrow beside the elevator, studying my wand-phone, feeling my chest tighten a little with worry as I attempt to push the antenna back inside.

With a ding, the elevator arrives, and one of my neighbors, a sweet, older black woman who brought me flowers after my break-up with George, steps out with her beagle in her arms and gives me a nod in greeting.  "Things okay?" she asks, and wiggles her forefinger at the area between her eyebrows, smiling tenderly.
Now I realize my eyebrows are creasing together anxiously and I let my face relax a little.  "Going great, Mrs. Johnson."

"You need to unwind, Robert," Mrs. Johnson says, and walks off, tsking me as she leaves.
I wish I could take Mrs. Johnson's advice, but now I barely have time to take a shower, let alone throw my clothes around in a frenzy.  I press "4" maybe a couple more times than necessary, and I don't bother to hold the elevator for a girl in horn-rimmed glasses, both because I don't have the time and because I think horn-rimmed glasses are ugly.

As the elevator lurches upward, I begin wondering what I should wear on my date with Gabe.  We don't know where we're going yet, but he usually shows up in a T-shirt and jeans, and if we're going to screw on this date, I'm going to need to pick something without buttons, shirt-wise.  I've had enough bad experiences with ruined button-downs—no, it's not just in romance novels.  Overzealous lovers have ruined my shirts one-too-many times, and I have no idea how to sew.  Even if I did, I wouldn't take the time.

The elevator brings me to my floor and I rush to my apartment, power-walking-style, key out, ready to bust it open.  Once I get to my door, 4E, I put my key in the lock, turn it, and the doorknob turns into a cookie.  Shit.

Taking out my phone, the screen is scrambled and the backlight is purple.  I'm afraid to slide out the antenna, but I do anyway, and the doorknob, thankfully, becomes a doorknob again.  Even if I turn off the phone, the magic still works; it's in the antenna, not AT&T.

This is absurd.  I don't have time for this.  I set the phone on my bed and shed my clothes on my way into the bathroom, praying that nothing happens, but since it's my life, and my life seems to be harder than the average gay wizard's, I doubt everything will be okay when I get out.

A quick shampoo and an Irish Spring later, my phone is still lying on the bed—which is still a bed, by some miracle.  I decide to keep the bathroom door open as I shave, to keep a better eye on my Nokia, but shaving is something you have to pay attention to as you do it.  I'd rather meet Gabe with a 5 o'clock shadow than looking like an eighth-grader who got ahold of his dad's razor.

I walk into the bedroom and toss my towel on the floor; I'll deal with it later.  The clock on my nightstand reads 6:46, and I know Gabe is going to get here early, because he likes to walk fast.  "I like a spring in my step!" he exclaimed to me once, before slowing down for me to catch up.

Glancing at my phone as I step into a pair of boxer briefs, I can see that it's still purple and scrambled.  I allow the waistband of my underwear to snap against my hips with a smirk, then realize that they might be lame, and that Gabe might see them later.  They're Calvin Kleins—acceptable.

Just as I'm about to decide between jeans or slacks, there's a knock at my front door.

"Yeah?" I call, praying that it's Mrs. Johnson and her beagle, but the voice I get in response is a man's—Gabe's.

"Robert?  I slipped in with some high-schooler and his mom.  Can I come in?"

"Yeah, one second."  Fuck.  I grab the closest pair of pants I can find, and they turn into a cookie.  Towel it is, then.  Wrapping the towel around my waist, I make my way out of my bedroom and over to the door.

I flip the deadbolt and pull the door open, faced with a cheery grin and an "I knew I was early," as Gabe pushes past me into the apartment, looking around.  He's never seen it before now; usually, I pick him up for dates or we meet somewhere.

Gabe doesn't seem to mind the fact that I'm in a towel as he heads over to my TV and starts looking at the chachke and pictures scattered on and around it, but I do, so while he inspects a photo of my mother and father from the late 80s, I scoot back into the bedroom, where the small pile of sugar cookies that used to be my beside lamp is waiting for me—as though I weren't nervous enough about tonight.

Until Gabe came along, I'd been planning on entering my nun phase.  Thirty-five is old in Gay Years; we age a little like dogs, except it's two gay years to every straight year.  Now that my slut phase is past—and it has been for a while—it's getting close to the time that I settle down and become a lonely, snippety queen with at least two cats.  This is my worst nightmare, and I'm glad that Gabe going on more than two dates with me and not asking for money made me realize that I'm still desirable.

This isn't to say that I'm undesirable, necessarily; I have a generally good muscular tone, and although my hairline is receding a little, I haven't started going bald yet.  Still, though, I can't help but be a little hard on myself when I look in the mirror because I wouldn't date me.  It probably goes back to my horrible relationship with my mother or some other clichéd reason like that, but the reason isn't what's bothering me.  It's the situation of being gay.

My homosexuality bothers me more than being a wizard.  Sure, it's strange to be able to perform transformation spells and brew potions, but it bothers me when people find out I'm gay and they say, "I thought something was off about you."  I like to think I'm a regular person, and that although people like George exist, I'm not one of them—even if I do insist on dating them.  As far as the stereotype, I have no idea how many times Liza Minnelli's been married, and Broadway musicals are not the flame to my moth.  Sure, I go to the gym enough, but it's because I like to be healthy; sometimes I sneak looking at the more muscular trainers, though.

I can't help the way I was born—wizard or gay—but I also can't help but want to keep both of these facts secret, the wizardry because I sound insane when I mention it to non-wizards, the gay because I don't like people associating me with "gay culture."
What is gay culture, really?  Society is so heterocentric that it seems as though gay culture has become something like a running joke among both gays and non-gays; homosexual men have become effeminate, shirtless shopaholics that speak with a lisp and wax their chests.

Speaking of being naked, I pick a pair of black slacks and step into them, glaring at my phone as if to tell it to leave them alone.

The phone seems to be listening—or maybe it's forgotten to ruin things for now, because it's just sitting quietly on the bed, minding its own business.  I reapply my deodorant, a scent of Degree Men called "Clean Reaction."

"Is this your mom?" Gabe calls from the living room.  "She looks nice."

"She's not," I answer, and pull on a gray t-shirt.  "I mean, she is, but only if you don't come out to her."

Gabe responds with a bark of laughter and I can hear him clattering around with more of my stuff.  A couple of minutes later, as I pull on a jacket, Gabe turns on the TV and flips to The Jeffersons.  I start to like him a little more as he guffaws at a Florence quip.

He looks up at I enter the living room in bare feet, carrying my socks.  "Hey, how hungry are you?  Answer on a scale from one to ten.  Because right now, I'm…" he pauses to check an invisible hunger watch.  "Right now, I'm at a three."

Now that I think about it, I'm not too hungry.  Before I left for the grocery store, I had a muffin, and I ate an entire bag of popcorn sometime after lunch—not to mention the piles of cookies in the bedroom that are available for the feasting now.  "Uh… I guess I'd say a four or five?"

"Good.  Then take off your jacket and come sit with me.  I'll put your socks on."  Until now, Gabe's been lounging on my couch like a jaguar on a tree branch, but he sits up and pats the seat next to him.

I accept his invitation and he takes my socks, getting to his knees on the floor to slip them on my feet.  "You've got good feet," he says, and wiggles my second toe; I fight the urge to chuckle, but I can feel my face screwing up a little into my "I'm-being-tickled" expression—a goofy half-grin accompanied by a gentle scrunching-up of my eyes.  Luckily for me, Gabe isn't looking up as he continues to speak.

"Did you know that if your second toe is longer than your big toe, they say it means you're smart?"  He pulls the socks over my feet and pats my knee, getting back on the couch and looking to me for a response.

"I guess I'm pretty smart, then."

"Yeah, really smart.  That sucker's practically a half-inch longer than the other one.  If you ever run a race, do it barefoot.  In a photo finish, your weirdo toe might win it."  He stops, eyes flickering to the TV as a commercial for Doritos starts playing.  "I love this one!"

We watch the commercial together, and when it's over, the Jeffersons are back, and Buzz Thatcher is proposing to Florence.  Gabe leans against me, and I enjoy the moment.  His hair looks nice; a more poetic person would call it something along the lines of a dusty chocolate color, and it curls around his face, thicker than mine has ever been.  I feel a little jealous, but I run my fingers through it anyway, looking down at Gabe to determine his reaction.  He just sighs lightly and settles a hand on my thigh, eyes fixed on the TV.

"What would you do if I told you I was a wizard?"  The words come out slowly, as though my own mouth doesn't believe I'm trying to tell him such an intimate secret.

Gabe releases a cheery snort and rubs my thigh.  "I would ask you if you'd ever been involved in a wizard battle."

"Well, I'm a wizard."

He sits up.  "Have you ever been involved in a wizard battle?"

"You believe me?"

"…That depends.  Have you?"

With a blink, I try to make sense of what Gabe's asking.  "Wait.  Have I what?"

"Wizard-battled.  I mean, have you ever been involved in a wizard battle?"  Gabe twists some of his hair around his forefinger, his eyes steady on me.

"Uh… not really, no."

Gabe settles back against me with a pout.  "That sucks…." he says.

"Am I that uninteresting?  Because I've never been in a battle with another wizard, I'm boring?"

"What?  Not really, but I was kind of hoping, because Sword in the Stone is my favorite Disney movie, and I was going to say, 'Rule Two:  no make-believe things like, pink dragons and stuff.'"

I look down at my socks and run my tongue over my lips.  "So you don't care if I'm magical?"

"Am I supposed to?  Wait, you're not serious, are you?" Gabe asks; he manages to rip his gaze from the TV long enough to give me a look of incredulity.

I wiggle my toes a second before answering.  "Yeah, I am.  My dad's a wizard, too."

"You are not."  He watches me a moment before speaking again.  "I mean, you're talking about like, LARPing or something, right?  Or D&D?"

"No.  I have a wand, and I put spells on things, and I can brew potions.  My stuff has been turning into cookies for the past couple of hours.  It's a big secret of mine.  I probably shouldn't have told you."  With every new word, I realize I'm sounding more and more delusional, and I wish I had kept my mouth shut, but it's too late now.

Gabe's giving me a look that he probably thinks is understanding, but his eyes are a little glazed, and the way his eyebrows are slightly raised and wrinkling in confusion suggests his concern for my sanity.  "Cookies?" he asks, and puts a hand to my forehead.

"Yeah, cookies."  I pull away from his hand and stand up.  "I'm being serious, here.  My last boyfriend broke up with me over this because he couldn't handle it.  Just… let's just watch TV.  Forget I said anything."

He turns back to watch what's become a Sanford and Son rerun.  "But if you're a wizard, then why aren't you trying harder to prove it?" he asks.

"Because I'm ashamed of myself for even mentioning it, thinking that you, a normal… how old are you again?"

"Twenty-six."

"…Thinking that a normal twenty-six-year-old guy was going to believe me in the first place."  I don't want to look at him, but I can feel his eyes on me.  Rubbing my own eyes with my thumb and forefinger rectifies the situation, but it doesn't take away from the amount of embarrassment I'm feeling.  "I can't even imagine someone telling me something like this.  You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

"I asked you to prove it, didn't I?" Gabe says, and I feel the weight of a hesitant hand on my shoulder blade.

I peer up at Gabe, who's smiling uncertainly.  "There's nothing I can do that would make you believe me."

"Do you have a wand?"

I nod.

"Go get it.  Show me magic!"  Gabe waves his arms, wiggling his fingers with a huge grin.

I get up and heave a sigh, shuffling into the bedroom and lamenting at the missing armoire; my clothes are lying in a pile of what looks like lawn clippings.  I grab my phone with two fingers, mindful of its power, and carry it into the living room.  "This is it," I say, and set it on the coffee table.

"That's a cell phone."

"Yeah.  I infused it with my magic after college.  It's easier if you need to suddenly whip it out and perform a spell."

"That's awesome!  So do a spell."

Looking down at the phone, I realize the screen's gone bright yellow.  "I don't know if that's such a good idea.  Remember when you were texting me earlier and I said I dropped my phone?  It fell in a trash can between this burger and this gross… thing.  I think it was ha—"

The coffee table turns into a glass dog and waddles as fast as it can into the bedroom, barking.  I think it's in the bathroom, because a clinking noise like glass hitting tile is coming from the bedroom, and the dog's barks are echoing slightly.
Gabe bursts into laughter.  "You really are a wizard?"  He stands up and disappears into my bedroom, but he's back a couple seconds later, slamming my bedroom door behind him.  "How did you do that?"

I haven't been so adventurous as to try to pick my phone up off the floor from where it fell off my coffee-table-dog, but I'm worried it's going to do something worse.  "Maybe you should go.  It's not safe here."

"Safe?  Rob, this is one of the best dates I've ever been on.  You can be a wizard if you want, but I'm just a Puerto Rican."  Gabe ruffles my hair and looks down at my cell phone.  "That's your wand, huh?  How do you fix it?"

My gaze joins Gabe's, watching the phone.  "It's kind of like a computer that keeps restarting itself.  I need to extract my magic and put it into something else, but I have to be really careful, or it could malfunction and I could be missing a lot of my powers."

"I need to stop you there, Rob."  Gabe is wrapping his arms around me; he slips his hands into my pockets.  "I believe you, okay?  But this shit sounds way too funny."

"How can you believe me?  I just told you I'm a wizard!"

Gabe chews on his bottom lip for a second; his arms are still slack around my torso.  "'How?'  You just turned a fucking coffee table into a dog."

"You're a dick."