Stress Reflex

So yesterday I was wondering what I was going to knit on this trip (Eight days, many airports, many cabs, much waiting.) and I was futzing through the stash with nothing and everything appealing at once, and the doorbell rang, and the inevitable happened.

Yarn arrived that I didn’t remember buying.

Now, I don’t get yarn online a lot, so It should stand out when I do it, but nope. No memory. I opened the box, knowing that it must have been something really good if it moved me that way…

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That explains it. Two of Cookie A.’s patterns and the solid colour sock yarn to go with them. Totally reasonable. I wound one skein of each of the yarns I choose (Louet Gems) and tossed myself out the door onto a plane to Pittsburgh. (If I knit fast I will have to wind more by hand.)

I wish you could have all been on the plane with me. I clear security with my various knitting needles and yarn and sit myself down and get out my ipod and the German stocking pattern, and I settle in. I have only once, in all of the flights that I have taken all over Canada and the US been told I couldn’t take my needles. (That was a tiny plane with no door between the cockpit and the passengers. I can see why they might be extra thoughtful about what the passengers have. ) Once I get them on many people comment on how they can’t believe that they are allowed, but with the exception of the occasional rare arse, I’ve never had a problem.

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So today I’m sitting there, knitting away and as the flight attendant walks by my seat she looks over, sees the knitting and advises me that I will have to put it away for take-off and landing and only knit when there is no turbulence and the seat belt sign is off because – get this….

Things could be bumpy and I could let go of a needle and it could go flying through the air and hurt someone.

I put the knitting away like she asked me to (of course, I’m not going to argue on a plane, Twitch a little maybe, but argue? Never)…but as I put them away I commented that this was the first time I’d been asked to do this, and she told me that technically, I should be asked every time. (That would mean that there are a lot of slacker flight attendants out there, but I digress.) I harumphed and looked out the window, hoping for a smooth flight so I could pick up my sock, but I couldn’t help but notice that the guy next to me had a very pointy metal pen that he was using to fill in the airlines “sudoko” in the in-flight magazine, and that pen could totally have gone flying through the air too, and being about 100% heavier than my needle and since according to the laws of physics impact force equals mass times velocity…his pen was far, far more dangerous.

All I ask for is a little common sense and consistency. I hope I get that flight attendant again. I’ll be the lady knitting with pens.

(Ps. it was bumpy the whole way.)

Tomorrow, Representing in Pittsburgh.