I went to a local yarn store earlier this week in search of, among other things, new needles on which to knit socks. Year of Socks!! I have been to this yarn store before and enjoyed myself so much that I walked away with this loveliness, even though I knew I would be allergic to it:
I spent my first few minutes in the store pawing over the sale bin and peering at the sock yarn before I made my way to the needle area. And there I stayed for many a long minute.
The friendly yarn store clerk was busy with other knitters before me, but after awhile he came over and watched me fondling the smaller size knitting needles over and over. (I was trying to decide between bamboo and aluminium, but after ScaryBez showed us these - scroll down IF YOU DARE - I'm glad I went with metal.)
"Can I help you with something?"
"I'm learning to knit socks!" I said brightly, as I continued to bogart the needle wall.
"Ooh. Socks are hard," he said. But see, he didn't say it appreciatively, like "Socks! An exciting challenge!" He said "socks are hard" the same way one might say "Dog shit makes bad icing." The implication was that socks were not only hard, but also, in some way, DISGUSTING.
"Socks, are, like the hardest thing you can knit," the store clerk went on, shaking his head.
"Well," I said, slightly less brightly due to bewilderment at having sock knitting shat upon by a CLERK IN A YARN STORE, "I imagine that's what . . . makes them fun."
"Well, I guess so," he agreed reluctantly, "I mean, once you can knit socks, you can knit anything." But he looked me up and down while he said it, like I was proposing to climb Mount Everest in an iron lung. "Are you a tight knitter?"
"Does the Pope shit in the woods?"
Silence. He handed me a set of needles a size bigger than I wanted. And then he started in on the one ball of sock yarn I'd been carrying around to see if it spoke to me. (It did. What it said was "Why is this guy shitting on socks?")
The clerk told me that the yarn I had chosen was "pretty pricey" for a first project and suggested instead that I comb the sale bin for "something cheaper to practice on". Dude! Do I look like someone who doesn't have enough odds and ends laying around to make a practice sock? What if I'm buying myself a skein of "incentive yarn"? You don't know my life! Fuck you, yarn store guy!
You know, I expect to be treated like an idiot at Future Shop, because they think that's how best to sell gadgets to chicks. That's why I don't go to Future Shop anymore. But I didn't expect to be bullied out of socks by some guy at my local yarn store. What the hell?
I didn't buy any yarn. And I did buy the needles I actually wanted. And I eyed the guy warily as he rang my purchases up. What would he crap on next? Lace? Circular needles? SANTA CLAUS? I took my receipt and bid him good day. And later that night, when the mood was just right - I cast on for my first pair of socks. So you can suck it, yarn store guy. Suck it.
