Plans for this weekend include turning wine into water.

Both John and I looked at the advertisement with great interest. We read it over and over again. Not only because it seemed strange, but mainly because the person who had taken out the advertisement was a good friend of ours, or should I say was when we were in high school.

Clarissa was very liked in school. Not only because of her beauty, and oh my, was she ever but because of her intellect. She was also top of the class in every subject that either John or I were at the bottom. So why she ever befriended us was not because of what we knew, but we were very pleased she did. Because of that we were able to make sure that the other boys in the class kept their distance from her, and that’s why she included us in her very small circle of friends.

A word about John and myself, Robert, before I write more about this strange occurrence. John and I were on the rugby team. We were centres and thus very large, very muscular, scary beyond belief, teeth missing and best of all, dumb. But because of that, no one ever came close to asking Clarissa out on a date. They knew they had to go through either John or myself and judging by the one boy who tried and now walks with a pronounced limp, they passed.

After school we bid Clarissa goodbye. It was a tearful farewell. She went on to college to become an aeronautical engineer and we joined the local sanitation engineers. It was the closest either John or I would ever get to measuring anything, other than the size of people’s rubbish bins. And that was fine with us. We just used the money we made by emptying people’s garbage to pay for our round trips to rugby championships all over the country, in desperate hope that some scout would see us and offer us a large payday to play for a professional team, or even better for the country. Well, that never happened.

We were probably not very good, even though in our minds we were. We had finally given up hope of a rugby career when we both got to the age of 45, way beyond when most rugby players retire from the game. We therefore resigned ourselves to being nothing more than garbage collectors for the rest of our lives.

One day while we were picking up the garbage at the large local performing hall, we came across an advertisement which had just been put up and we were stunned when we saw it. We would never have put two and two together, if it didn’t have a picture of our best friend from high school, Clarissa, on it. We looked at each and scratched our heads.

“I thought she went in for aeronautical engineering,” John said.

“Yea,” I replied, “me too.”
“Can it be the same Clarissa?”
“Looks like her, don’t it?” I agreed, “just a little older.”
“In fact, much older.” She had a forced smile and grey hair. “She was blonde once,” asked John, “wasn’t she?”
“Yea,” I replied, “very blonde and now she’s grey.”
We read the title of the advertisement again for like the 100th time just to make sure we could still read, because that’s not something we do a lot of nowadays. No calling for it in our line of work. ‘Watch Clarissa Watson this weekend turn rabbit into frogs, men into women, dogs into cats and wine into water.’

“I read it right, didn’t I?” John agreed.

“This really baffles me. First of all, that’s Clarissa. Her picture is the same except for her last name, but that could be her married name.”
“Cor, lucky guy,” I had to interrupt my friend.

“But the rest of this, I’d like to see.”
“Yea,” I replied, “everything except that bit about changing men into women, that’s old news anyone can do that nowadays. Look at David Callaghan, he’s now Denise Callaghan.”
“Oh yea, and how about Jean Custer she’s now James Dean.”

“Yea but that’s girl to man, this is man to girl.”
“Yea I guess you’re right. But how about the rest, I’d like to see that.”

At that minute we jumped because standing right in front of us was an older version of Clarissa James. “Oh, my goodness!” she yelled looking at us, “are you’re really, are you really?” but she never finished her sentence. John was about to say yea Clarissa we are John and Robert but instead of her finishing her sentence, she turned around and walked away. We were hurt. We were really hurt. After all we had done for that woman in high school. “Man,” I said to my friend, “remember that dope who kept drooling literally.”
“You mean Jacob?”

“I remember we smacked him and stuck him on the wall with super glue, because he tried to get a date with Clarissa. Well, maybe we should’ve let him have his way with her.”
“I think we did,” I replied quickly as Clarissa reappeared in the company of an older version of that dope. “Jacob Watson!” we both cried out.

Clarissa was really very pleased to see us, and she began to hug us until she was repulsed by our smell. “How are you guys?” and then she turned to the man next to her, “darling,” she said, “you remember John and Robert from high school?”
“How can I possible forget,” he replied laughing, “you guys tried your best to keep me away from my darling wife, but somethings are meant to be.”
I could see the pain on Robert’s face. I had to come the rescue. “Yea, we never got far in life you know. We just didn’t do things properly. But you,” I said pointing to Clarissa with a stalk of asparagus I was chewing on, “you went to get a degree in aeronautical engineering what happened to that?”
“Didn’t like it,” she replied scrunching up her nose, “I decided to try something else and found I was much better at being a magician. Now I have my own show. My darling husband helps me,” we hated that darling husband stuff, “and now,” she continued, “we travel the world and I do magical shows everywhere.”
Robert wasn’t quite sure how to proceed, so I had to come to his rescue again. “We was blown away when we saw this advertisement. Can’t be the same Clarissa we said to ourselves, but it is. Oh my, yes it is. So, we will come to the show on Saturday I think it is.”
“We would love it if you can sit right up front and we can introduce you as our best friends from school.”
That was too much and we had to decline. “Just in the back seats will be fine.”

Robert pointed to the advertisement. “We would love to see you do all these things, especially turning wine into water.”
“Well guys, that why I’m here. We are trying out a new printing company. Oh, you know it’s a guy we went to school with Herbert.”
“Herbert the rabbit?” both Robert and I shouted.

“Yup, the very same.”
“Well he’s been on to us to try out his company, but I don’t think we will do that again.”
“Why, what’s wrong with the sign?” I asked.

“It’s just that, well it’s all perfect except for this bit about turning wine into water. It’s the wrong way around, I turn water into wine.” And then she snickered, “who the hell has ever heard of turning wine into water. That’s an impossibility,” and with that, the two of them turned and left, “see you on Saturday guys. I hope you have better clothes to wear on that day.”
“And have a shower!” shouted Jacob.

“Hey you guys,” shouted the driver of the garbage truck, “I can’t wait all day for you. Do your job.”
Oh well, I guess somethings never change.