Not exactly a party trick.

Alright, here's the scenario. You walk into a store and gather your items at the checkout. You don't have any cash on hand, and are out of checks, so you decide to use your credit/debit/shopping card. You pull out the dingy overused card, and examine the magnetic strip with a grimace. Your mind flashes back to the many times you have repeatedly had to swipe the card numerous times, only to have the poor cashier hand key in the number. (Angering many impatient customers behind you.) Shouldn't they have fixed this problem by now? Well a absolute solution I don't have, but I have a trick that just might save you a few headaches!

All you have to do is grab a plastic shopping bag, ( A fresh on mind you. One that has never been opened, or it won't work.) open it up, and insert the card where there are no wrinkles and you can see the magnetic strip clearly. ( This has only been tried on white bags. ) Slide the card through the reader as you would normally and.... Shazaam!... the card works again. (This isn't 100% accurate, but it has worked for me 90% of the time.)

Now I can't tell why this works, ( I assume the static field from the bag has a big part. ) but I can tell you it does work. Plus in doing this you can impress the cashier and all those around with your Macguyver like abilities. Who doesn't like Macguyver? ( Oh C'mon! Put those hands down!)