Story:

I woke up late today... because Amelia, Erin and I stayed up making fun of Elliot and his curly burnt whiskers (we're beginning to think he may be mildly retarded... he likes to stick his face in flames). SO. I missed my bus that would get me to class on time. SO. I took the next bus. But I decided to ride it a couple blocks past school and get some new knitting needles at The Knitting Tree. If I was going to be late already... what's a few more minutes... (shrug). So, I walked up to the store, and it didn't open until 12... and it was 10:30. BUT. A woman cranking open the canopy above the store noticed me and asked what I needed, that she could maybe help me out. Her name, was Melissa. She was maybe 45 years old, wearing cheetah print spandex pants, high heels, a snappy shrunken jacket and a huge belt. Her ash colored hair didn't move. It was hair-sprayed into permanence. She had a cigarette in her mouth (she was talking and smoking at the same time...?!), long, metallic pink fake nails, and a thick New York accent. Not the kind of woman you would expect to run the knitting tree. SO. I tell Melissa I just need new needles, and she gushes about how its no problem, she'll hook me up, as long as I dont need anything fixed or restitched or whatever. So we go in, and she starts swearing. She's standing behind the register, looking at her pants. I'm standing in the entryway of a big room FULL of yarns. There are shelves to the celing overflowing with yarn yarn yarn. Yarn on the floor, yarn in piles, yarn everywhere. It's dark. Melissa's cursing, and then says something like, "well, at least your a woman... hah." and I couldn't figure out what she was talking about. Then she shoves some paper towels down her pants, and starts talking about how she wasn't expecting to get this today, and she' s unprepared, and "wouldn't you know, these are new pants... god damnit." I figured it out, and gave her a sympathetic, "oh man.... that's too bad..." something something. She went on to tell me I needed size 8 needles for my yarn, showed me her yarn baller, "When you become obsessed you'll need one of these. Mine's electric, hah. Isn't that terrible?!" Cast my yarn on my new needles, told me she owned a knitting shop in Manhattan for 20 years... then came to Madison... she has a plaque at the Union? (I didn't know what she was talking about). Then sent me on my way... because she had to go home and change.

It was an experiance.