"Oh, my God, my uniform's ripped," Lisa Leslie gasped melodramatically after a game.

"So fix it. It's not that hard," DeLisha Milton replied, giving her teammate a dark look. She took her jersey back out of her locker and showed off a neat line of stitching around the shoulder.

"Seriously, even I can do it," Nicky McCrimmon added. "And I'm a city girl."

Lisa threw herself down on the nearest chair and asked, "Where's the sewing kit?"

"Where it always is," Sophia Witherspoon answered, taking it down from the shelf next to Lisa's head. She looked at her own stuff and said, "Crap. Does anyone have an extra drawstring? The one in my shorts broke again."

"Jeez, Sophie, that's the third one this season," Tamecka Dixon said, shaking her head. "You can have the one from my road uniform. I'll just take this one out when we go on the road. I remember the good old days when the league would replace your drawstrings for you..."

"Oh, shut up about the 'good old days'," Rosalind Ross complained. "All you folks who talk about the good old days seem to have forgotten that you made them go away when you wanted to go on strike."

Lisa suddenly squealed, "Oh, my God, I just stabbed myself! Someone, help me!"

Sophia looked over. "Lisa, the thread goes through the little hole. You don't wrap it around your finger," she said with the patience of a saint.

Tamecka was not so patient. "Lisa, hon, give me that, I'll take care of it for you." That started Rosalind and a couple of the other youngsters snickering. Tamecka whirled on them and snapped, "Don't even think it, or I'm going to kick a lot of ass in here." Without waiting for the others to back down, she sat down with Lisa's shorts and started to mend them.