a bar bug (revised for alias802)

Went to pick up a take-out order at Tully & Marie’s. On the bar next to my food containers was a cocktail napkin that had been unfolded and shaped into a tiny dome. Each corner was twisted into a point and the middle puffed up. I figured a bored diner must have just left. The bartender rang me up and then pushed the napkin sculpture away with his fingers. To my astonishment the thing scurried off, moving erratically about the bar as if powered by blind miniature legs. Could there possibly be a mouse under there? A large beetle? The bartender nudged it on the other side and it scuttled back. “How’d you do that?” I asked, feeling five years old again. The bartender waited a moment, then lifted the napkin. “The irregular shape of the lime,” he announced with a ringmaster’s flourish. On the varnished surface lay the small green swollen fruit. He flicked it and I watched the lime lope and waddle down the bar. "Old bar gag. The kids love it." He dropped the napkin back over the lime and let me tap it – paper and fruit transformed into creature by my touch. “Electronics crash and burn out,” he said. “But the bar bug has staying power.” Maybe it was time to start drinking again. Or have kids.