Scenes

Drumming, drumming, drumming his fingers on one of the pattern books he waits for his wife to finish browsing the yarn shop. His wife has a sort of head bobbing twitch going which is probably a health issue. He's making it very clear to not only his wife but everyone else that he thinks this whole thing is too much for him to have to put up with and she'd damn well better get on with it so he can get back to his stuff that, in case you didn't know, is much more important than anything she could want to do. She, with an apologetic glance, says she'll be back some other time. They leave. Ann Mary says, "No wonder she has a twitch."

A not-so-young-anymore lady comes in. "I need some fuzzy stuff to put on the edge of something I'm making." We look at all the fuzzy stuff and finally select some Trendsetter Vision as being just what she's been looking for. "Oh," she says. "I want to learn how to knit! Do you think I could learn it? I don't think I could but I'll love to know how!" We assure her that she can learn, just come in and take a lesson. She promises she'll be back. And sure enough she came back. And sure enough, she can't learn. I'm thinking maybe I should tell her about all the four year olds that learn but decide that's not going to help. (It also doesn't help that another customer keeps telling her that it took her five years to learn how to cast on.) By this time she's nearly in tears. I think she's too distracted by her surroundings. The shop is very busy and Ann Mary isn't there to help. We finally agree to try again another day.