Hello London. The Moth is returning to Union Chapel on Thursday, September 28th for a night of vibrant true stories.

The main stage is the quintessential Moth experience, a two-act show featuring a musical act, where the storytellers and a notable host share true personal tales without notes.

Experience a night of unforgettable Moth tales as they're recorded for future episodes of the Moth podcast and radio hour.

Doors open at 7 and doors begin at 8. Get your tickets now at themoth.org, Bowerslash, London.

Welcome to the Moth podcast. I'm Jodie Powell, a director at the Moth and your host for this episode.

There's something magical about storytelling, but you know what else is magical? Actual magic.

Well, perhaps not actual magic. We're not talking about Gandalf or Dr. Strange here, but there's something special about stage magic.

About car tricks and pulling rabbits out of hats and astounding an entire audience.

This episode, we're going to be playing two stories that touch on magic in different ways. Don't worry, no tricks get revealed.

First up, we've got Mikayla Bly. She told the story at a 2016 New York story slam where the theme of the night was romance.

Here's Mikayla, live at the Moth.

Hi. So in high school, I had not had any boyfriends whatsoever at all whatsoever, even a little.

And the closest I came was I had a platonic male best friends who people would think we were dating for like a second before I had to be like, no, we're not.

But my favorite moment was between when they thought we were dating and I had to say no, we're not.

Because that was the closest thing I had to a boyfriend.

And so I get to freshman year of college and I'm sort of thinking this is where I will meet the nerdy man of my dreams.

And it will be so real. And freshman year, first party, there's this guy. He's in sort of a knot of people. He's wearing a velvet jacket and he has a pompadour, looks like Elvis.

And he's doing magic tricks for this little knot of people. And I'm like, that's the one.

And I had over and we hit it off. We talk about books, which is the way I knew how to flirt.

And he was so different than the boys I knew in high school. He likes art history and Morrissey. And the best part about him, so he's not just a magician, he's a really good magician.

He had won the Junior Magic Olympics in high school. That's a real thing.

And he had also given a trick to David Copperfield. That David Copperfield was currently using in his road show.

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