(It reminded me of the Rose Window. Pictured with a $4 trinket of a pendant/key chain thing, bought after the Notre Dame fire because one of my daughters did a semester abroad living in view of that cathedral every day. It finally showed up in the mail yesterday, just in time to meet its match.)
The story. He had the day off for the holiday weekend. Yonder daughter took the day off. Me, I’m always a little off…
We knew the holiday traffic today would be horrendous so we chose Friday to do our day tripping fun stuff. Pack things to drink, she said, we’re going to be driving for like two and a half hours, easily. Andy’s for the best cherries (and into the insulated case they go) then across the mountains to the beach town/touristy stuff/best chocolate/lunch at some new-to-us restaurant. Oh, and (not that we needed it at that point) the ice cream/sorbet for the dairy allergic that’s made in-house at that place that uses fresh fruit from the local farms. Go.
And so we did all that. I managed to drop the handmade mug with the balls of yarn motif that I’d bought at Stitches and shatter it outside the ice cream shop, but at least it cowabunga-ed off my car door holder in Surf City. Somehow that fit.
Anything else you guys want to do here before we head for home? Gotta beat rush hour.
Me, looking at my phone for choices and directions: Yeah, let’s try out one of the local yarn stores!
Them: Like you NEED more yarn! (with a slight groan.)
But hey, there was one right over there, turns out, just one block over from the ice cream shop. Well that’s handy.
I walked in there and a skein facing the door, set low in the bin, leaped out at me. Gorgeous. I did a quick cursory look around the rest of the shop but knew nothing else would live up to this. Shame there wasn’t more. It didn’t have any kind of a ball band but it was in the dk wool section and it wasn’t like it was hard to guess what it was.
Wait. There were two more at the bottom, tucked way under. I pulled them out and considered the variants in the hand dyeing, the fact that all three were different enough that you would always know where the skeins had changed, and opted for just the middle one for a cowl, or potentially a grandbaby sweater with solid colors to border it. Black? The Rose Window?
Maybe the ball band for the first was stuck under there where those came out of? I reached, and there it was, a little smushed from someone else having crammed it back in after knocking it off the skein. I smoothed it out, put it back on for the next person, thinking, c’mon, people, it’s not hard to be a little more polite to the shop and the other customers than that, and took the one I wanted to the front.
Where I told the unsmiling clerk that my family had told me I had ten minutes. (And with that, I instantly announced we were tourists they would probably never see again, not potential regulars. I didn’t know that that might be going to matter.)
Michelle popped her head in the door and grinned, It’s been nine. Just saying!
I grinned back.
The clerk did not. Everything about her screamed major depression. I wanted to help somehow if I could in what few moments I would have with her.
She asked if I wanted it wound. I would, actually, very much, thanks.
She set up the swift and the winder, and I was a little sorry that the shop owner had gone for the expensive wooden type without springing for the powered version that frees the staff to pay all their attention to their customers while it winds, like Green Planet/Fillory has. I would think that that would pay for itself over time, but whatever, not my business.
The woman cut off more yarn than I would have liked when she cut the knot tying the two ends together, but whatever.
She didn’t maintain the tension and neither did her set-up. It kept tangling. She stopped and freed the strand three times.
On the fourth time, there were only five rounds left on the swift. She picked up the scissors. (!!!!!)
Saw that I was watching, a little stunned. Oh right.
She put the scissors back down.
I said something to the effect of offering to wind the rest of it by hand myself and she took it off the winder and did exactly that.
That picking up the scissors thing was so automatic on her part that on reflection I realized it wouldn’t have been the first time she’d done it. Get rid of the nuisance. Toss the end of it. The customer would never know.
Now I need to figure out how to let the owner know. I googled to find a picture of her to make sure this wasn’t her, and it wasn’t–wrong face, wrong generation.
I want the clerk set straight, certainly not fired–but even more: I want her to get therapy. Because she’s clearly just barely dragging herself through the day and her issue is a whole lot more than cutting off nuisance yarn and cheating customers.
And maybe, trying to be charitable, it was just a stupid brain-dead moment from the habit of cutting the knots at the beginnings. But it sure didn’t look that way to me.
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Yowsers! That place won’t get a lot of repeat customers with a clerk like that. Knowing you knit every last bit of yarn on the ball, the idea of her cutting off a couple of yards is alarming.
Comment by Helen 05.25.19 @ 9:10 pmIt’s difficult to imagine that someone working in a yarn store could be depressed… and then I remember my state of mind, a few months back, surrounded by my own beautiful treasures, uninspired.
I too hope she gets help and finds joy again.
Comment by Suzanne in Montreal 05.29.19 @ 5:39 amLeave a comment
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