Minor Miracle

We had a minor miracle occur in my Beginning Fly Tying class tonight. Tonight's main theme was dubbing, so my students learned how to tie a Partridge & Orange wet fly, a Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear nymph, and my dubbed body Rubber Leg Beadhead Prince nymph. Everything was going smoothly through the first two flies, but then I reached into my bag of materials and found out that I brought exactly the same amount of beads as there were people tying. That meant that if anyone dropped their bead, and beginning students often do, I didn't have any extra beads to give them! Oh no!

I tried to keep calm as I handed out the beads. I wanted to start sweating, but sweaty hands mean slippery beads, so I held it in the best that I could. Through clenched teeth I explained how the holes in the beads are countersunk, and how they should put the small hole on the hook point first. Everything seemed to be going OK, but then a student showed me how his bead wasn't going around the bend of his hook. Knowing that if he tried to force it he could easily jar the bead loose and send it shooting across the room, I offered to try my hand at getting his bead on. That's when the miracle occurred. Despite my years of practice and steely-eyed determination, I made a misstep, and I in fact jarred the bead loose and sent it shooting across the room. Actually it shot into the side of my foam tool caddy, ricocheting back towards me and my lap. I wasn't sure where it went at first, so I checked everywhere: on my seat, in my jeans' pockets, in my belly button. It was nowhere to be found. I figured it had bounced onto the floor and rolled all the way across the room, never to be seen again. But then I looked in the bottom of my garbage bag that is attached to my vise, and there it was, looking up at me through its small hole. Or maybe it was its big hole, I was too excited to pay attention...My student's Rubber Leg Beadhead Prince nymph wouldn't have to go beadless! It was truly a minor miracle...

Maybe from now on I should use these beads when I teach a Beginning Tying class...
At least they wouldn't roll away very easily...