My gears are a-grinding, worn down to the very pith of their marrow (if gears had marrow). As all regalings of tales macabre, my story begins with the telling words, it was a dark and stormy night ... It was a dark and stormy night, and I was leaving my office after a long day at work. Outside, it was pouring down buckets. As I exiting my building, I was carrying my briefcase, my lunch bag, my thermos, and my coffee cup. I was also holding my umbrella, trying to keep at least some parts of me from getting completely drenched. As I approached my car I knew that I was going to be in for a bit of a challenge as I needed to transfer my load so as to free up a hand to be able to extract the car keys from deep within the pocket of my pants. When one's hands are full, this series of manuevers is typically tricky. It goes from the realm of tricky to the bailiwick of flat-out impossible if you add a force 10 storm. Eventually I managed to get a hand free and began to awkwardly crab my newly freed fingertips into my pocket. After several minutes of earnestly seeking, with my clothes well beyond complete saturation stage, would you like to venture a guess at what I found in my pocket? ... Yeppers, absolutely nothing. My car keys were in my other pocket. Then I had to begin the ordeal of switching my load to free up the hand on my other arm. Sure that is completely gear grinding, but what sets me off into the stratosphere, is that regardless of what pocket I begin my search in, my keys are always, always in the other pocket.
