the Other Kind of Knitters (or Neither a Lender Nor a Borrower Be)

So my regular knitting shop was closed yesterday when I decided I wanted to try this One Hour Scarf idea I’ve been seeing on the bulletin boards and chatrooms on Ravelry. so i go to Michael’s and all they have are size 13’s in plastic (have you ever used plastic? I haven’t and I don’t know how I feel about them…). So, on a whim, I swing by my other knitting store (the Naked Sheep) and she’s open. Score.

Well I tell her my plan (blah blah blah worsted blah blah blah double yarn blah blah) and she’s like WELL you can use a size 11 or 13 (she said they don’t make a 12; who knew?) and it’ll work just as well but she’s all out of 13s. then she says that she knows me and I’m in there enough that she trusts me, and that if I want to borrow her size 13’s she’d be fine with it. she's super sweet and super nice and really great, but this seems kind of inappropriately kind since i'm not there nearly as much as i'm at the Yarn Girl, and to be quite honest, i only shop there when Yarn Girl is closed; that's my knitting "home away from home". I politely decline and she takes me to the size 11’s. it's all good.

Suddenly, this woman who’s sittin there knittin, leaps up outta her chair and tells me I must borrow her size 13 Addi Turbos*. She’s got the ones like my mom, with the interchangeable cable, etc, only they’re the version 2.0 that people  like. I’m all, Thanks but no and she refuses to take no for an answer. So I’m starting to get really uncomfortable and she’s still thrusting these needles at me like the mother of an ugly fat girl on prom night, but I’m trying really hard not to be a dick to this woman who’s all “we’re a community of knitters” and “this just means you have to come back and show us what you’re working on”, etc. I know, at this point, I’m blushing like a virgin, but only because I don’t know how to get her to leave me alone without jamming the needle in her neck.

So I stop and I’m like, “Ma’am thanks; I really appreciate it and I’m absolutely, positively touched that you’d loan your needles to a perfect stranger, but I really really can’t accept them. I can’t tell you how wonderful the gesture is, and I know you mean it, but I just can’t”. she has no idea what to say. Really. she's dumbfounded that i won't take her needles.  i paid for my needles and got the hell out of there leaving only dust bunnies and yarn balls behind me.

i mean, i get why she was all We Are the World and shit, but it hit a level of creepy i haven't experienced in years. besides: i'm a new yorker; the minute you, a complete stranger, act nice to me, i check my wallet and fight off the crippling feeling of vertigo brought on by instant and incalculable sense of mistrust.

next time i go needles shopping i'm bringing pepper spray.

*these are the Lamborghini of knitting needles, kids.