MISSING: One seeing-eye dog

http://www.flickr.com/photos/leesiateh/434113358/
Originally uploaded by Leesia.

I got up late this morning owing to a freakish inability to remember to reset my alarm. So I shot out of bed at 7.30am (exactly an hour late) and flew around the house, scragging myself together in spectacular fashion. Matching shoes - even jewellery - I did pretty well.

But I got off the bus and hit Chicago humidity today. Instantly my hair frizzed, the takeout coffee cup in my hand felt instantly warmer, and the lining of my long skirt started to stick to my legs. Icky.

So cranking my ipod up, I fell in step with a lady in front of me and I started to trudge to the office. It was then that I noticed an older, toothless fellow up ahead of me, trying to dig a daily newspaper out of one of those vending machines on the street. He turned around and stared at the lady in front of me, and then stopped and stared straight at me. He had the eyes of a madman, admittedly, and I thought for a nano-second that he was either going to punch me in the face or steal my purse. Or both.

My ipod was not turned up too loud, so I was able to hear him say, directly to me (and within earshot of plenty of people), "well I'm not gonna walk with that ugly woman, but YOU young lady, let's go!". Charming, eh? And he smiled a gummy grin.

And all I could do was smile. Honestly; in my humid, icky-sticky, bedraggled and decaffeinated state, he managed to crack a smile. No small feat, trust me.