Let's cut to the chase: The whole day turned out to be a pain in the glass.

There I was, at the Pittsburgh Glass Center, attempting to prove that "Baubles, Bangles and Beads" was more than just the name of a Broadway song title. Call it kismet: The Glass Center holds open houses several times a year, and it just so happened that there was one on Martin Luther King Jr. Day ... the very day I was free for a visit.

Once I stepped inside, I instantly knew this was a transparent treasure. The nonprofit working studio -- one of the top glass facilities in the country and home to world-renowned glass artists who work and teach there -- is also a gallery. The exhibition space may be small, but the talents on display were larger than life.

But I digress. I was there on a mission. And my instructor, Michael Mangiafico, was waiting.

"Just watch what I do and then we'll have you try," he tells me. Watch? I was mesmerized. His hands flew through the air as he whirled glass rods into the 2,500-degree flame of the table-mounted torch. He gathered the molten glass, spinning it in circles. He was intensely concentrating, whirling and twirling and swirling. I interrupted him only once when he tossed out the word "mandrel." I was thinking Barbra, but he explained this mandrel has only one 'l,' and was the official name for the metal bar onto which the bead is formed.

Whirl. Twirl. Swirl. Faster than I could say "Windex," voila! A work of art!

"You try."

I asked for an encore. Anything to stall.

And so Michael played act two, moving even faster this time, heating more Moretti glass, applying it to the mandrel, whirling and twirling and creating more art. He took it a step further, adding decorative designs from a second tube of glass.

I could stall no longer. It was time to spin or get off the stool. Michael handed me an oversized pair of protective goggles. I shoved a tube of glass into the flame, perhaps a bit too much like the Cowardly Lion might have done. He gently guided me back into the flame until the tube began to melt; officially it's called a "gather," but Michael prefers "lump."

He urges me on. I freeze. Beads of sweat break out on my brow. "Turn it! Turn it!" My common sense shattered, and instead of turning the lump away from me, I turn it toward me. Instead of taking the glass tube out and making a clean break, I fuse the rod to the lump. Instead of making a bead, I make a blood clot.

"Do it again!" Leslie from the South Side was hovering over my left shoulder, encouraging me like a fervent fan.

I take a second tube of glass and try to decorate the lump with some fancy dots. Note I said 'try.' I fuse the tube onto the lump. Michael comes to the rescue again. He reheats the lump and breaks apart the tubes. Carefully taking the equipment from my hands, he turns off the flame.

"You did pretty well!' he says in that tone that's never believable.

We both look at the bead. He declares it an "amorphous blob."

I declare it a blood clot.

Michael sticks it in the kiln to coagulate. "Don't forget to pick it up in three days."

I leave, wondering how much it will make on eBay.