Wednesday, August 30, 2006

I Have The Power.

Any Sheep knows that there are things she can control and things over which no amount of will she exerts will lead to change. This is is good information to have what with the need to remain sane and functioning.

For example, being stuck on the Maine Turnpike for half an hour this morning along with umpty-gajillion of my fellow commuters while the authorities dealt with a somewhat nasty accident is something that is beyond my control. Now, the average Mainer does not have a working knowledge of "gridlock." It is beyond our ken. We get in our cars, we go places. We complain about lengthy waits at stop signs. We become completely flummoxed in the face of non-moving traffic. We also don't have Ikea...but that's another level of cultural confusion and not really relevant here.

Now, I could have joined some of my fellow motorists and departed my vehicle to wander amongst the bumpers and make friends. But this seemed inadvisable. I could have followed the stellar example of several of my comrades and attempted to drive in reverse for three miles, thus extricating myself from the tangle. I saw several potential problems with this given that I, myself, was nearly struck by several cars showily pulling off this maneuver.

No. It was best to simply accept that I had no control over this situation, turn off the engine and catch up on reading my mail. There was a lovely brochure from my plastic surgeon detailing all the other services of which I could avail myself during my upcoming mole removal which I read with interest. Of course, I had to read it from my left side so that my cheek mole couldn't see. I haven't broken the news to it yet and I don't know how it is going to feel about it's upcoming change of locale. The time passed, traffic eventually began to move and there was little to no stress involved.

There are, however, things over which I do have control. And God help you should you be one of those things and make the ill-fated decision to not bend to my will. There will be consequences:




Tough Love For Socks.
It had to be done. It would not behave. It developed a gaping hole with no apparent cause. I suspected a dropped stitch. However, after counting, I seemed to have more than when I started. I tried to reason with it. I explained the difference between "master" and "garment." It kept giving me 'tude. It shouldn't have messed with me. I am the Almighty Sheep.
And I smote it.
SA

12 comments:

sheep#100 said...

Smite, Sheep, smite!

Anonymous said...

It grieves me to see that poor pile of yarn between your feet, made to suffer due to the misfortune of having been born ackrylic.

Send me your address and I will send you beautiful merino wool handpainted sock yarn. Your feet deserve to be happy.

Sheila said...

Sheep, don't you carry a knitting project with you wherever you go?
I look forward to train crossings with trains on them, gridlock, and other opportunities to sit and knit without guilt in the quiet of my car. I know you have a cute little sock project bag...go put it in your bag/purse now.
You made me laugh out loud tonight...thanks!

Teri S. said...

Let that be a lesson to you, sock! It sounds like the sock was beyond salvaging, so you did well to put it out of your misery. I was quite surprised to read that you read your mail instead of pulling out your knitting. Having a resident sock in my purse means that I can be productive when I get stuck in hours of gridlock, which has happened twice now. You'd be surprised how much knitting you can accomplish while creeping forward at 1 mph.

Anonymous said...

Oh, the poor, poor sock! It should have behaved better.

Tania A said...

Maine-iacs + IKEA = Explosion. I don't think Maine is ready for IKEA> I don't think most of New England is ready, in fact. I grew up in NH and MA, I should know. (Maybe Rhode Island is. They're all wierd there.)

Traffic is an oddity to me, thank the gods, but I have experienced it enough to know that you get further by waiting than by getting angry and frustrated, or turning around. How ever did going backwards begin to equal going forwards? *boggles* Silly people.

Poor, poor sock. *mourns*

Lazuli said...

That is one well-smote sock. What on earth is the past tense of smite? All I can think of is some sort of Germanic construction like "hat gesmitten" or something of that sort. Without doubt, whatever the proper verb is, the sock received a might dose of your awesome powers!

April said...

bye bye sock, you shouldn't have been such a heel.

This Weary Traveler said...

You showed him! I hope this is a lesson to any UFO's around the house that you don't mess with the Sheep. Gridlock. My commute is all about gridlock. Every day. Yuck. Travel with yarn. Always travel with yarn.

Anonymous said...

Sorry about the sock. Next time it will know better.
I once got caught in gridlock on the Maine Turnpike. It was July 1985 and I was 7 1/2 months pregnant. We sat for over an hour with the car overheating because I needed the ac to stay cool. There was a concert and once we crawled by the exit the traffic was gone. We drove all the way home, which was Caribou at the time, without another incident. That's a memory I haven't thought of in a while...
Karen
http://nothingbutknit.blog-city.com/

Lorraine said...

ROFLOL! Oh, the bravery! I wish we all had the courage to smite the wicked knitting.

molly said...

I love that you said you smote the sock. I had a sock once that needed smiting, smoting, whatever.