Welcome to Part Two of my Undomestic Goddess series. Today’s installment is subtitled “In Which I Go to the Craft Store.”
Let’s begin.
I don’t know if you know this about me but I am a huge Joss Whedon fan and ever since 2002, I have been obsessed with dedicated to the best gorram space western to ever be unfairly cancelled by a group of really stupid Fox network executives.
So now you might be wondering what exactly Firefly has to do with a trip to the craft store. I like to think if you’re as obsessive dedicated a fan as I happen to be, you might already know and you might already be tingling with excitement. But, in case you aren’t…
This year for Christmas, my mother is making for me a Jayne hat (as seen in the previously unaired episode “The Message”). If you don’t know what the Jayne hat is, here’s a picture:
Pretty cunnin', don't you think?
Of course, my mother had no idea what a Jayne hat was or why just saying the phrase ‘Jayne hat’ made me jump up and down, clapping my hands with glee while giggling like someone who’s been into the nitrous oxide. But because it made me jump up and down, clapping my hands with glee while giggling like someone who’s been into the nitrous oxide, she agreed to make me one (and mittens to match. Yes, I know Jayne didn’t get matching mittens but my mother makes some seriously kick ass mittens. You’d be stupid not to want a pair).
All I had to do was get her the pattern and pick out the yarn.
Hence the trip to the craft store.
And as you know, I live in the Mount Washington Valley where outlets are plentiful but craft stores are not. So I headed off to Large Mart to buy yarn. The pattern calls for three skeins of three different colors. Large Mart only had two of the colors. But I picked up three skeins each. One for my hat, one for my niece Jupiter’s hat (who decided she wanted a Jayne hat when I told her about them because Jupiter is the coolest kid ever on the face of the anywhere) and one for the mittens. Here’s the conversation I had with the cashier:
Him: Wow. Look at all this yarn. What are you making?
Me: Me? Nothing.
Him: What’s with the yarn then?
Me: Oh, my mother knits and she’s knitting me a hat for Christmas.
Him: It takes this much yarn to knit a hat?
Me: I don’t know. No. Yes? Maybe? She’s making more than one hat. And mittens.
Him: Oh. Well, won’t that be nice.
A couple days later, I drove an hour and a half to the closest craft store to pick out the missing color. I don’t do well in craft stores. I don’t really feel comfortable there. I’m very out of place and I think the employees can tell that just by looking at me. I always feel like the second I walk through the door some kind of intruder alarm will go off because I don’t sew. I don’t knit. I don’t crochet. I don’t quilt. I don’t arrange flowers. I don’t scrap book. I don’t paint or draw. I don’t really do anything that would necessitate a trip to the craft store so I only go there if I have a very specific list written out for me by someone else… kind of like when I send The Man to the grocery store with a list that says “buy the jug of milk with the light blue cap.”
The Jayne Hat pattern told me exactly what I needed so I was able to pick out the three skeins of the missing color and then, because there was a yarn sale going on and they had so many interesting colors (so much more than Large Mart), I picked out some other colors because hey, I love hats and I really need a solid navy hat. And maybe a green one too. And oh look! That teal is really nice. And maybe that purple too…
When I was finished, I took my basket full of yarn (and I do mean full) and proceeded to the cash registers. Now this next thing doesn’t really relate to my yarn yarn but I just want to say that that store was chock full of screaming kids. There were kids everywhere all screaming and running up to their mothers with something in their hands saying, “Mom! Can I buy this?” and then when she said no, they’d run away, find something new, run back and scream, “How about this? Can I buy this?” I know I must have been the same way when I was a kid (and god bless my mother for having four of us and living to tell the tale) but WOW, was it scary. And annoying. It made me glad that my kids are the furry four legged variety and when I bring them into a store (many of the stores in the MWV are dog friendly), they do not run around screaming and asking to buy things.
Wow. Just wow.
The mother (of four screaming and skulking children) in front of me took pity of me and the look of absolute terror on my face and let me go ahead of her in line. That’s when I had the following conversation with the cashier:
Her: Oooh! And what will you be making?
Me: A dent in my credit card?
After I escaped the craft store with my second rather large bag of yarn, I drove out to my mother’s house to drop off everything. My sister was there. Here’s the conversation I had with her:
Her: What’s with the yarn?
Me: Mom’s making me a Jayne hat.
Her: How much yarn do you think it takes to make a hat?
Me: She’s making me mittens too.
Her: Uh huh.
I was starting to feel like Diane Keaton’s character in the 1987 movie Baby Boom. Have you ever seen that one? If you haven’t, you should. It’s pretty good. Anyway, this city dwelling career woman who has just moved out to the country decides to pick apples to bake a pie. They show her on a ladder just having filled one basket with apples. She says, “I think that’s enough for a pie” and the camera pans away to reveal a massive numbers of baskets on the ground all overflowing with apples.
My family’s had a jolly good laugh at the influx of yarn in the household. Especially my mother who, when she came home that evening, looking at the sea of yarn and said, “What is all this?”
But you know what? I will take whatever teasing and ribbing they want to send my way because pretty soon I am going to have a hat that, when I walk down the street wearing it, people will know I am not afraid of anything.
Damn straight.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I suddenly have this overwhelming urge to have a Firefly viewing marathon.
Have a shiny day.
