My truck had to go see the truck doctor this week. Truck and car doctors are not at all like people doctors. People doctors look you over, give you the fix, and send you home. Truck and car doctors keep their patients. Sometimes they keep them for days.
How inconvenient.
So while my truck sat down at the truck doctor’s clinic this week, I was riding buses.
Here are a few things I learned about being a rider of buses (in Austin Texas).
1) You spend more waiting at the bus stop then you do riding on the actual bus. That’s when you need to be knitting, at the bus stop. Knitting will keep you from checking the time every 90 seconds, from pacing pack and forth, from muttering to yourself, from obsessively checking your facebook, and from peering hopefully down the street looking for a glimpse of the bus. Which is what everyone else is doing. Next to all that, calmly knitting yarn that comes up out of your backpack looks majestically dignified!
2) Every city bus sounds like it has failing breaks and a transmission that is about to fall out the bottom of it.
3) No one seems to care that they are riding in a death trap except me.
4) Projects that require you to change colors every so many rows are not good bus knitting projects.
5) Pie Are Square shawls are much better for that.
6) The inside of buses are surprisingly clean.
7) The inside of buses are surprisingly full of people. So many people that half the time you can’t knit on the bus. You’re too busy trying to sit up straight and not slam into the person sitting next to you as the bus whips around a turn on those squealing brakes.
8) Men of a certain age will give up their seat to women and ride holding onto one of those straps. White, Black, Hispanic, well-dressed, homeless-dressed, all of them will stand up and offer when the bus is crowed. So chivalry is not dead.
9) Men younger than that age stare sullenly into the distance and refuse to stand up no matter what. All of them. Most won’t even move their backpacks off seats so people can sit down unless you bully them a little. So chivalry is on life support and will probably die within our lifetimes.
10) Everyone watches the knitting. Some look openly and some steal glimpses but they all check out the yarn and the needles.
11) The women brave enough to ask about the knitting think its adorable and sweet that I knit.
12) The men brave enough to ask about the knitting (and they are all of the give-up-your-seat-to-a-lady variety) thinks its adorable and sweet that I knit.
13) I don’t know what the sullen (male) millennials think of me knitting but if I had to guess I’d say they probably think its uncool and stupid. Which is pretty what I think of them so that’s okay.
It was an experience and not a bad one at all. But I am glad to have my truck back. It makes buying cat food at the grocery store so much easier. Still its nice to know there are so many friendly, knitting-friendly folks in this city. As for those others, they all need to be beaten with Happy Stick until their attitude improves.
"There is no failure. Only feedback." - Robert Allen
22 Comments on "Bus Knitting"
I’m so glad you have your truck back! But best of all I think you are wonderful for your attitude about the whole thing. Keep up the good work and the knitting too!
PS, you didn’t mention the name of the shawl did you? Cuz I’m certain that No Math is required on buses.
I’m happy to have my truck back as well. very, very happy. And since the truck doctor seems to have cured it, perhaps it will be a good long while before it has to go back.
I did not, in fact, mention the shawl’s name or that it was based on a mathematical formula. They already thought I was a bit odd just for being a knitter. I’m sure If I tried to discuss geometry and formulas and such with strangers on the bus I’d be labeled as a “don’t make eye contact” person.
I am English and aren’t lucky enough to own a car/truck/van so I use our buses all the time. It’s just the same as in Texas I think – it takes an age to get anywhere so, circular needles (so as not to stab anyone else,) and a ball of yarn pass the time away. Ladies and girls always want to know what I’m knitting, men too and sometimes even young men will show an interest. It’s nice to chat and knit while being transported slowly and bumpily to where I’m going.
Yes to the circular needles. I would think if you drop a straight or DPN on a bus its gone forever. Like a stitch marker that pops off.
Knitting is the only way to cope with bus riding. How do the non-knitters stand it???
Crafting is therapy in so many ways. I hear again and again from people how their hobby helps them manage the small and tehbig difficultie sin life. I really have no idea how the non-crafter manages.
I’m glad to have been an inspiration! Stitch on and enjoy.
Glad your truck had fun at the spa!
All my years of commuting involved me at the wheel, so there was a LOT of knitting that didn’t get done for most of my lifetime. Trying to make up for it a little bit now, though. Yesterday after chores I sat out in the paddock with the goats and worked on a sock 🙂
Sounds like the good life, knitting out with the goats. 🙂
My favourite bus (and train) knitting is definitely a sock, though only with a simple pattern, not cables, and not whilst knitting the toe. You can’t knit while you are driving so really taking the bus occasionally has to be a good thing!
It wasn’t bad. Of course my luck dictated that it rain every day I was walking to bus stops. But… meh. I have a rain coat and lots of wool hats to keep me dry.