Aunt Sophie, We Hardly Knew Ya

Don't ask me (because I'll take the 5th) why or how (let's just say it was on a whim and a dare, not necessarily in that order)I ended up in a Store of Ill-Repute (to put it politely) on 13th Street yesterday. While in this porn palace, I struck up a conversation with the register clerk - who happened to be crocheting, behind a display of condoms, rings and things, and bullet shaped vibrators. She admired my Kersti scarf, I didn't quite admire, but I appreciated her crochet. And then she asked me if I was Sophie. Sophie's Yarns? I asked. Yeah, Sophie. No, not me.

Regardless of who has what store where and how, my understanding was that Sophie's got it's name because everyone had an Aunt Sophie who taught them how to knit, or something to that effect. I looked around, and tried to imagine under what circumstance Aunt Sophie would take her circular needles and bop on down to your local head store. The visual of Aunt Sophie admiring dildos, butt plugs, and vibrators that come with remote controls was just too much blashpemy for me to bear. When I think of Aunt Sophie, I see Elizabeth Zimmerman, not Jenna James. I immediately left the store, and dove headlong into Lord & Taylor to wrap myself in something cashmere, and wash away that nasty little visual.

Then, I started thinking about knitting at work. And this woman behind the counter, crocheting, gives a whole new meaning to whiling away the hours, conversing with the flowers. When I knit at the courthouse, I'm biding my time, waiting for things to get started. She's presumably, waiting for things to, eh hem, wrap up. I've always thought of knitting as an excellent distraction, but I've never really thought of what I needed distraction from, other than a little stress, a little chaos. This woman, when it comes to distraction, is in a whole other league. Uch, I don't even want to think about what she uses those gauge swatches for.