How I Got My Zippo
I was at a college party in Bradford, Pennsylvania in the 1990s, and I was one of the two oldest people present. The other ancient of days (probably about 28 years old at the time) was a factory worker at the Zippo plant. He was demonstrating various Zippo sleight of hand tricks.
The most impressive and (for me) irreproducible trick was one where he would hold the lighter, closed, in one hand with just a few fingers on the back corners, and then do something that appeared to be (but clearly wasn’t) simply squeezing it abruptly. The lighter would pop spinning into the air, the lid flying open, and miraculously light itself, landing in his other hand lit and open. I could not, and still cannot, figure out how the hell this trick worked.
Anyway, I was fascinated and kept asking him to do it again, trying to figure it out without him actually teaching me. I leaned in closer and closer. Eventually he must have got it slightly wrong, or else got tired of doing the trick for me.
Anyway, the lighter popped into the air, flew past his waiting hand, and dropped into my nearly full plastic cup. We both looked at the slick of lighter fluid rising colorfully to the surface of the beer and he said, deadpan, “You can keep that one.”
