Why am I always the one in handcuffs?

“So what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” a friend of mine asked last Friday. 

It was a joke, you see:  I didn’t look a speck like me.  I was dressed up—hair done, makeup, heels, the whole enchilada—and actually looked like a girly-girl.  Quite a change from my usual t-shirt and overalls or jeans. 

“Not such a nice girl,” I said, eating a potato chip.  “I spent the morning in a jail cell.”

“Oh.”  My friends down at the Atomic Caf� have gotten use to me.  “Well, was it at least a nice cell?”

“Very.  Very clean, modern.  They know how to do things at the Concord P.D.  I got to wear handcuffs, too, but those were kinda old-fashioned.  Long chain, not the hinged kind.”

“Why were you wearing handcuffs?”  My friend tactfully ignored my awareness of handcuffing technology.

“Oh, I’m always the one who gets cuffed,” I said, then frowned.

Why am I always the one who gets cuffed?

The first time, I volunteered.  That was my first trip to a shooting range, with the New England Chapter of MWA, a couple of years ago.  We learned a little about police procedure then.  Those were a modern type of cuffs.  Very snug.  I was made quite aware of how my movement was restricted.  Didn’t care for it.

(My most recent trip to a firing range was with SinC New England.  We didn’t get much on procedure, but we did get to use shotguns on moving clay targets, which I absolutely adored.  I managed to hit most of them and my fellow Sisters granted me the name “Deadeye” for the rest of the day.) 

I got cuffed this time because I was wearing black.   The silver showed up better against black.  SinC/New England was shooting pictures for our 2007 calendar, showing New England Sisters in various mysterious settings.  (When I get a copy of our picture, I’ll post it along with a link so you can order the calendar, too.  It’s going to be a lot of fun.)

It’s quite an education I’ve been getting, this writing thing, and I guess if I am always the one getting cuffed, it’s not that I’m bad.  I’m just drawn that way.

 And in other news…

A week ago was NEBA, the New England Booksellers Association, down in Providence, RI.  I was there with other MWA/SinC members to help promote our two fine organizations.  Fellow Avon writer Lori Avocato (left) and I signed a heap of books, both at the MWA/SinC booth and at the HarperCollins booth—we’d get a stack on the table and they’d be snapped up in no time!  It was a good chance to meet local readers, booksellers, and librarians—some old friends and new. 

I posted a fun blog to the Femmes Fatales’ blog a couple weeks back, on what I can’t survive without when I’m on the road, going to cons, doing signings.  It’s all about the bag, baby.  Check it out, and let me know what you can’t live without on the road.  It’ll come in handy on the road to Bouchercon in Madison.  Which is in just four days—awwk!