The Fate Of A Nation...

I managed to gift myself with a little bit of extra snooze time this morning and was running just a bit behind my usual weekend schedule.  Otherwise, though, it was a pretty typical Sunday around here.

The Big, Fluffy Kitty was sitting around looking coy

The Absurdly Gi-normous Kitty was denying his recent weight gain by attempting to prove that he can fit into his Collapsible Cat Cave

And I was reknitting the hat  (Very Scary Fuzzy Squeaky Duck included for scale and as a means of protection against AGKs who might wish to interfere and require having the fear of God squeaked into them)

Things were moving along pretty nicely.  There was some downloaded television for viewing, thus allowing me to catch up with some of those shows that I miss now that I have to get up at the ungodly hour of 5:00 a.m.  Snacks were readily available should I begin to weaken from hunger.  All felines were otherwise occupied with their various hobbies and leaving the yarn unmolested.  Life was good.

And then the fate of this great nation was compromised by a dropped stitch and a poorly timed phone call.

Even now, I am not really certain if this loose yarn was truly a dropped stitch.  I only know that something looked wrong and required that I release some stitches so that I could I travel back down to the problem.  From there I seemed to lose track of the loops and had nothing to work back up into something resembling stockinette stitch.  I was perplexed, but not really overwrought.  This was the least of the problems I've had with this hat, after all.  It was fixable.  I just wasn't seeing the solution at that exact moment and had a whole bunch of loose yarn that needed careful watching while I pondered my options.

This was a very bad time for someone to call me for polling purposes.

I'm normally pretty tolerant of this kind of stuff.  I will usually take the time to answer a few questions be it for polling or marketing research.  These folks are just doing their thing.  And I am usually nothing if not helpful.  And bored.  

However, I have noticed a rather distressing trend in the calls I'm receiving of late.  Some are messages left on my machine offering the me the chance to take part in a "town meeting" event and asking that I stay on the line if I want to participate.  My digital space for messages is then filled while the candidate conducting the meeting chats away with callers, oblivious to the fact that I am not even home and have no way of hanging up on them.

Others, once they have me on the line, start off in typical polling fashion with the asking of questions regarding my political affiliations and voting intentions.  They soon deteriorate into highly biased questions designed to "help" me see how I might benefit from voting for certain candidates or supporting particular issues.  By the end of them, I am convinced that my not telling the caller he can count on my support will result in the death of cute puppies and the eviction of little old ladies from their homes.

It is not the fault of today's caller that I am fed up with all this intrusiveness and the assumption that I don't have the wherewithal to do my own research into the issues upon which I will be voting in November.  He could not have known that I have something of a petty streak.  Who could have shared with him the story of how I changed my vote on election day a few years ago because the supporters of a certain candidate rushed the school van I was driving to pick up my students for one of our weekly outings and waved signs mere inches from my windshield?  

He also probably had no idea regarding the hat situation.  Most people calling names on a list aren't prone to thinking, "I should definitely ask if there is a hole in her hat.  That is just common courtesy, after all..."  I am 99% sure that this is not something that is covered in the training session before they are allowed to use the phones.  Although I think it should be...

At any rate, he probably was not expecting me to say that my vote on the issue he wished to discuss would be decided after I'd tabulated the results of my own phone survey.  The vote will go to the side who called me the least number of times on a Sunday afternoon while I was busy trying to do Very Important Stuff.

You don't want to say that you have a hole in your hat at that point.  You want to express both indignation and a keen mind.  Telling the caller that you can't be bothered to discuss taxes because you are wrangling wild string with naught but a crochet hook and high hopes for the future will only hurt that image.

For what it's worth, I'm certain that I will have settled down come election day.  There's plenty of time for me to get a grip and make it to the polls with a more rational and reasonable approach to voting.  I'll do the right thing.  

And that hole?  Well, by the time I was off the phone, I'd lost any hope of finding its cause.  I worked those stitches that would cooperate back up to the needle, finished the round then stitched the hole closed with a trusty yarn needle.  From there, I forged ahead.  I put it behind me.  All is well with the world.

But, for one brief moment today, the fate of the nation rested upon a grumpy  Sheep with valid voter registration and a hole in a hat.  

SA