It's Always Darkest Before You Turn On The Light

  It was a dark, gloomy night.  A thick, heavy fog descended over the city making it impossible to see your hand in front of your face.  Fortunately, my hand was at the end of my arm so I wasn't concerned. I was in a bit of a panic, though, because I had accidentally run over my neighbour's cat with the lawnmower earlier that day.  In desperation I had run to the nearest toy store to get a stuffed cat, figuring that my neighbour, an elderly lady whose eyesight was so bad she once mistook me for the Dalai Lama (I blessed her and went on my way), would think that her cat was just having an especially long nap. But they only had stuffed tigers and I didn't want to scare the bejesus out of her.  Noticing that the pet store next door was still open, I ran in and asked if they had any cats. They didn't.  Besides a three-legged dog, the nearest thing they had to a cat was a hamster.  I had no choice.  I bought the little fella and took him home with me....

  I went to the doctor with a back pain.  Wait, that sounds like the doctor had a bad back. Hang on...I had a pain in my back so I went to the doctor.  That's better.  Carry on. Having waited the customary 6 hours in the waiting room (well it IS called the waiting room), I was led into the smaller waiting room, where I spent another 3 hours reading old copies of Good Housekeeping and fiddling with the little instruments in the glass jars. I had just nodded off and was dreaming that a large trout in a tutu danced into the room, slapped me upside the head with an old sock and called me Dolores, when the doctor sailed majestically into the room, looking immaculate in a starched white uniform, and asked what ailed me.  I would have thought the fact that I was bent over like Quasimodo would have given her a clue, but I decided to humour her. After explaining that my back was stiff and sore, and ramming the message home by making all kinds of painful sounds, the docto...

  It was a bright, crisp morning in January.  I opened my eyes to a winter wonderland.  The sound of sleigh bells echoed in the air, and laughing people skied past my window drinking hot chocolate and pelting each other with marshmallows.  But this illusion was faint and transitory.  (I read that sentence in a book and have been dying to use it somewhere.)  It WAS snowing, though, and that meant one thing for certain - it would freeze overnight and tomorrow I'd have to deal with ICE!  (Insert dramatic music here.) I realized I was now faced with the prospect of once again demonstrating my complete inability to cross the street without having an end-of-life- experience whilst simultaneously screaming at innocent passersby to either help me or get out of the way.  Arming myself against the vicious eastern winds proved not to be a problem, as I merely wore so many layers of clothing that I looked like I was about to be launched into deep space. ...

  I was beside myself with excitement.  Sister Margaret Mary, my convent high school headmistress (the personification of pure evil - picture the nun from the movie of the same name), had just announced that the school would be presenting a nativity play for Christmas.  I had always dreamed of being an actor and figured this was my big opportunity to have the entire school witness my outstanding dramatic talents.  And I assumed that Sister Margaret Mary, having heard my many and various excuses for being late, realized that I was the obvious choice for a leading role. I was sure that I was a shoo-in for the virgin Mary as I was a virgin myself and I knew a guy named Joseph, so you can imagine my absolute shock when the cast list was posted and I was to play 'Shepherd #2', with one measly line - 'Here is the babe."  Here is the babe?  What kind of completely pointless remark was that?  Any idiot could see that the babe was right there in the straw....