Slightly off topic, but has anyone played a similar game with a pair of scissors? Get a load of friends and sit on the floor in a circle. Hold the scissors, turn them over in your hands, open them up or close them, then pass them to the next person around the circle with the blades either open or closed, handle or blades pointing at the person you're passing to. When you pass them, say either "I pass these open" or "I pass these closed".
The trick comes when you pass them with the blades closed, but you say that they are open. But, like the hairbrush, this game has nothing to do with the scissors. Open or closed refers to how your *legs* are when you pass the scissors - either closed (folded or crossed), or open (un-crossed). It has nothing at all to do with the way you twist, open or close the scissors.
People who don't know the trick will drive themselves crazy trying to figure out the rule....