Everything's Harder When It Rains

It was raining when I set out for work this morning, so I grabbed an umbrella before I left the house.

I don't like walking to work when it's raining. Not because I get wet (although my socks and sneakers do, which is annoying) but because it means using one hand to hold the umbrella and it's hard for me to do anything else with my remaining free hand.

Usually I braid my hair and write during my walk. I could skip writing if I had to, but I did want to get my hair braided. I'm very good at braiding my hair by now, but not good enough to do it one-handed. So I balanced the umbrella awkwardly in the crook of my elbow, with the post against my shoulder and the spokes at the top resting against my hair. I reached around the pole and under the spokes for my ponytail and divided it into two sections to make my usual twist braid. As I twisted the sections individually clockwise and together counterclockwise, I thought, Ha, if I'm not careful I could end up braiding my hair to the umbrella spokes.

I finished the braid with some difficulty, then took the handle of the umbrella to adjust it to a less clumsy position.

Tug.

Or, possibly, even if I am careful. Laughing, I undid the braid and braided it again, sans umbrella spoke. One of those little paper cocktail umbrellas might make a cute hair adornment, but a full-size one is a bolder fashion statement than I want to make at work.

Although it would solve the problem of needing a hand to hold the umbrella.

"Has Anyone Seen My Corpse?"

I don't remember now if I've done this before or not. terrycloth was talking about playing EQ2, which reminded me of all my EQ war stories. These are not just gaming stories, no. These are "When I was a kid, we walked uphill for ten miles in the snow to get to school, and WE LIKED IT" stories.

Then koogrr encouraged me to reminisce, so blame him.
( Tales from a Bygone Era )