She Knits, Therefore She's Cool

There's a book sitting on our bedroom dresser titled "The Cool Girls Guide to Knitting". No, it does not belong to me. It's my wife's and for the past year or so, she's been spending quite a lot of time knitting. A few scarfs, a shawl, and a pair of booties that look like they'd be more apt to fit an elephant than a human. But now, armed with this book, she's getting braver.

I never thought of knitting as something that a non-grandmother would do, let alone a non-mom, but there is a reason why she does it. It keeps her awake when watching television. We've been married for over 8 years now and if we've ever had any real arguments, it's been about her inability to stay awake while watching a movie. Yes, I can be that petty when I want to be. One day, as a joke at the time, I urged her to take up knitting so she can watch movies with me without falling asleep. Well, she did.

And now she wants to move up to blankets. I don't know about you, but when I think of knitting a blanket, two benefits come to mind: 1) it will keep her busy for at least a month, and 2) it will be a nicer blanket that is cheaper than you can buy in the store.

Wrong.

Kristin wanted to knit a blanket to give as a gift to someone in our family for Christmas so we went to the yarn store. Actually, I drove her to no less than four yarn stores because none had the kind she wanted--I did get to stop at the bike shop and buy the shoe covers I needed but it was still a pretty miserable time. Finally we found it. The balls of yarn sell for $4.99 each. She tells me to get a basket and start checking lot numbers on the packaging because apparently blue yarn made on Tuesday may be different than the blue yarn made on Thursday. Who knew?

And then she tells me to place 15 balls of yarn into the basket. Let me repeat that. Fifteen balls of yarn at $5 a pop. And that doesn't include the "fur" to make it feel nice. That stuff goes for $6 a ball and she needs 8 or 9 more balls of those. Maybe 10.

"You mean to tell me we're about to spend $140 on a blanket that you have to spend the next month making? Oh no you're not, she's getting a scarf."

See, I have no problem with Kristin dropping a bunch of money on stuff for herself or for the house or whatever, but $140 on a gift she then has to spend a month making? Well, that's not cool with me. And no book on the dresser is going to change that.