My Mastercard Commercial

Dinner with Dad--$30; Extra gas for taking his "shortcuts"--$10; looking pathetic and getting him to buy me 3 books of my choice--PRICELESS.

I try to refrain from teasing my dear friend Patricia who enjoys reading books about knitting more than she enjoys knitting. Me, I read only what I have to, so I can get to the actual knitting part. Call me excessively result driven, but I don't enjoy the mechanics of figuring out patterns. Probably because I'm not yet a true intermediate knitter, with enough knowledge under my belt to combat my fear of the "what the heck does that mean? Oh crap, I better pick something else to do."

So how do I explain buying a knitting book without any patterns?

Can I whine and say Patricia's been after me to read this forever?

Ok, ok, I've fallen under the Pearl-McPhee sway. She's funny, she's useful, and she reminds me that though I think I am the only knitter in a 200 mile radius--I'm not. Lots of people are yarn-a-holics. We just try to keep that fact hidden. And that's not so bad. Now if only the book will share some tips for foisting off more of my knitting on hapless friends (insert EVIL LAUGH here).

Now that I have had the book for all of 3 hours, I have already forced my poor co-worker--a guy, who does not knit or have any desire to learn to knit--to listen to me read far too many pages of this book aloud. He passed the polite laughing stage about 4 exerpts ago and I think, in the interest of my own continued health and employment, should put the book down now.

I will leave you with an exerpt (you think John should be the only one to suffer?):

"if you have to share space with a non-knitter, it's important to fully discover his or her hobbies. You're going to need ammunition when he or she finds out about the little accident you had when the yarn factory had a close-out sale." --- pg. 28

So true.