Knit Sisters

I’ll just admit it: I’m stalled on Rogue’s sleeves. Lorinda has suggested that I just forget the sleeves and use the existing hooded sweater-vest as a vehicle to show off my tattoo. Appealing though this idea is, winter will come and I’ll be sorry. This really raises the question: could there be a widespread disorder known as “First Sleeve Syndrome?” Or am I the only one afflicted?

With Bianca, it was the second sleeve that was the heartbreaker. I briefly considered sawing off my left arm instead of knitting the sleeve, but I ultimately saw sense.

Obviously, I have a sleeve problem. Of course, as you know, the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem.

In the meantime, I finished those pink cotton/wool blend socks:

The feet of diverse species can coexist peacefully together if given an appropriate and gradual introduction.

I’ve also been down to our local CVS to see if I can find a remedy for my sleeve malaise and, of course, to see my favorite CVS cashier.

The first time I encountered her was a few months ago, when I tried to buy Alex some allergy medicine, but found that their stock was utterly depleted, what with the run on pseudoephedrine products by allergy-sufferers and methamphetamine addicts alike.

So, having failed at my central task, I instead bought a Diet Dr. Pepper, which I paid for with exact change, and here I do mean coins. I gave them to the cashier. She looked at the coins as if I had just put seven little turds in her palm.

Now that’s exactly the kind of dynamic, positive approach to a job that has made this nation great!

In an interaction with this same cashier a couple of weeks later, I attempted to jolly her along with a friendly, “How’re you doing?”

In a tone of infinite weariness, she replied, “Just as miserable as ever.”

Heh. I love that response, although admittedly my warm feelings toward this incredibly negative cashier are probably a direct result of my three strange and not-so-wonderful years in Berkeley. Berkeley, the town where no one would ever have said such a thing. It’s just not how things are done out there. Either you get the phony-baloney Teflon cheeriness or the “I-am-one-with-the-universe-and-I-transcend-lowly-human-things-like-mood-by-ceaselessly-doing-yoga-and-grounding-my-spiritual-life-somewhere-between-Buddhism-and-Scientology” routine.

I don’t know about you, but I just can’t get any traction in those kind of exchanges. What am I supposed to say? “Sorry, pal, but I do not believe your absurd story about transcendence, yoga, and Scientology. I suspect that you too run out of toilet paper at inopportune times, experience seasonal flooding in your basement, and have been known to yell at your children.”

Misery, however! I know from misery.

I told the cashier that I appreciated her honest response and I paid my bill in exact change: a $5 bill and six coins. True to form, she regarded the coins as though they were six little turds. And truly, it warmed my heart.

There was no remedy available for “First Sleeve Syndrome,” however.

In the wild, hand knit socks sometimes use reflective surfaces as a form of camouflage, making it impossible for predators to discern which are the real socks and which are the mere simulacra.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 21st, 2006 at 7:37 am and is filed under Sock it to me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.