It's a rainy Sunday. I'm not going anywhere more important than Dominion or Home Hardware. I'm at home, in my bathrobe, zit cream and moisturizer soaking into my face, no where near ready for public presentability. I decide that my hair needs to be pulled back out of the way. I give it a cursory once-through with my brush, distractedly pull it back from my face, twist it a couple of times more out of habit than anything else, and clamp the first clip I find over it.

The result: the smoothest, most graceful, most subtle, most casually elegant French twist ponytail I've ever produced.

Why does it never turn out this well when people are actually going to see it?