The audience claps. Penn and Edward Teller walk out onto the stage. Dave looks a little confused, but shakes their hands. They sit.
Penn folds his hands and looks smug. "Hi, Dave!"
"Hi. What's wrong with Teller?"
"Nothing's wrong with Teller. This is my partner, Edward Teller, who besides doing magic, also happens to be a famous physicist. He was at Los Alamos, developed the H-bomb, supported SDI, you know, that kind of thing." Teller smiles weakly and waves.
"And he still doesn't talk?"
"What is this, Conan O'Brien's show? We've been here before, Dave, you know the routine. I talk, Teller doesn't."
Dave replies in his best hick voice: "Gol-ly, I never rekinned being a host would be so darn comp-licated." Audience laughs. Dave smiles, having regained control. "So kids, what do you have for us tonight?"
"Well, Dave, our new book, ``How To Play With Thermonuclear Devices,'' just came out, so we thought we would perform a trick from that." Teller holds up and points to a copy of the book. "Our book, of course, contains many other great tricks, like how to break into NORAD's computers to play chess, how to make your own radio controlled fake Geiger counter, and how to ride a nuclear warhead just like they did in Dr. Strangelove, which we won't be able to do tonight. But first, Dave, have you ever handled enriched uranium before?"
"Urr, no." Dave is remembering the time Penn & Teller dumped thousands of cockroaches on his desk, and is visibly worried.
"That's a good thing, Dave, because it's dangerous stuff. You won't find David Copperfield or any of those other wimp magicians playing with it. But tonight, we are going to turn your entire desk into enriched uranium."
"Uh, couldn't you just spray paint my name on it?" The audience catches the reference to Bill Murray's appearance, and laughs.
"Now, that wouldn't be much of a trick, now would it? There's nothing to worry about, all I need you to do right now is remove any valuables from the desk, any pencils or personal belongings that you don't want turned into uranium."
Dave grabs his mug and a stack of note cards. "Hey, this is just like when I left NBC!" The audience laughs. Dave walks far away from the desk, to the other side of Penn & Teller.
"Good. Now to protect us from the radiation, we've brought along this glass shielding which has been specially made with excess lead to prevent us all from having children with extra heads." Two stagehands roll out the glass shielding. "But before we begin, I would like to pass out these radiation badges as a safety precaution." Penn attaches a radiation badge to himself, while Teller attaches one to Letterman. Teller then goes over to Paul Schaffer, and gives him one, and then gives one to all of the cameramen.
"Remember, kids, if you're going to play around with radiation, be sure to wear your badges."
"Right. I'm also going to put one here on the desk, so we can measure the strength of the uranium. The badges are green right now, but will turn orange, then red as you are exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. If the badge ever turns black, you're crispy. Now, if Teller could come over here for a second and help me with the shielding, we will be ready to begin." The glass shielding is very thick, at least half a foot, and Penn and Teller lift it with considerable effort and lower it over the desk. Although he glass is heavily tinted with grey, the desk is still visible beneath it.
"Great. Now I would like to point out, that while many magicians have performed tricks which appear to be physically impossible, I believe this is the first magic trick which is financially impossible. Uranium costs 2.6 million dollars per gram [*], Dave's desk weighs about a hundred pounds, there are 454 grams in a pound, so when we are done with it, Dave's desk will be worth 118 billion dollars."
Dave smiles at the camera. "And NBC didn't think I was worth a lousy 14 million." The audience laughs.
"So I think we are ready to begin. Teller, if you could drape the desk, please." Teller takes our a picnic blanket and drapes it over the glass shielding. "Now Dave, I need you to concentrate. I want you to imagine your precious desk turning into enriched uranium."
Dave puts his hands up to his forehead and pretends to concentrate. "Why do I feel like I'm on the Psychic Friends Network?"
"Dave, I need you to concentrate. Concentrate. Think of uranium. Enriched uranium. Think of your desk turning into uranium!"
With that, Teller pulls off the blanket over the desk, which has turned to a dim florescent yellow. The radiation badge has turned black. The audience is fascinated and stares at the desk for a few moments before remembering to applaud.
"Ladies and Gentleman, Penn and Edward Teller! After this commercial, we'll be back with musical guest R.E.M.!"
-Thomas C
[*] Actually, this is the cost of californium. It's hard to determine the true market price of pure uranium, as no one ever buys more than a few grams. As my friend Sheung says, "One problem is the stuff is highly toxic; inhaling a few milligrams of the dust is indisputably fatal. This means you have to pay the UPS guy extra, too. ... [But] why bother worrying about its cost? Charge it on your Discover card and take advantage of the up to 1% rebate." And yeah, I know that a pound of the stuff is critical mass, ok? Don't bug me.