Fodder

This comes to you from the Vancouver airport, waiting for my flight to Toronto.  On the way here I sat beside a gentleman who was impeccably turned out in business attire and flying with three other gentlemen.

As we were flying (very short flight – 30 minutes) he closed the portfolio he was reading, and turned to me and my knitting, and he said "Don’t you have any concerns about that?", gesturing to my sock in progress.

Now, I really wasn’t sure what he meant.  I pondered the possibilities.

1. He thinks I should be concerned about my gauge.  Frankly, sock gauge is deeply personal and he disagrees with how tightly I was knitting and would like me to consider a 2.5mm needle.

2. He’s a conservative type, and he sees that I’m wearing a plain shirt and jeans myself, and that makes him concerned that the colourway is a bit bright for my personal taste and I won’t be happy with it in the end.

3. He, as I, thinks a lot about flap vs short row heels and struggles with the choices that surround them.  Secretly, he feels that flap heels are superior and he knows that I lean that way too, and he’s worried that if I continue on the short row path that in the end I’ll be dissatisfied, and he just wants to get ahead of that because  that’s what happened the last time he knit socks, and it was really painful.

4. He’s concerned that the slipped stitch pattern I’m using isn’t a pattern but a series of mistakes, and he’d like to open the door to teaching me how to fix it, but he doesn’t want to hurt my feelings if I’m not struggling or I like it this way.

5. Some bizarre security thing where once again another traveller is surprised that the TSA, one of the most vigilant and paranoid agencies on earth, has made a bad safety call that they themselves should question on a flight because they would know way, way better than the people who spend billion of dollars a year on airline security and are experts trained to reduce our risk to as low a level as they possibly can without having us fly naked….

Actually… nix that last one.  That can’t be it.  Too far fetched.  In any case, no matter what way I considered his statement, I couldn’t think of a way I was concerned – so I told him, ever so sweetly and with a smile,  No.  I have no concerns about "this".  He looked appalled, opened and closed his mouth once and went back to his papers. 
I knit.

I can never stop flying.  It’s too entertaining.