Stop me if you’ve heard this before:

“I just don’t have the patience for that crochet stuff.”

Or maybe it sounded like this:

“I’d love to knit but I don’t have that kind of free time.”

Yeah. There are many, many people in this world who could totally make gorgeous yarn-y creations like we do but sadly, their lives are too exciting for such pursuits. They are too busy. They are fulfilling some vitally important function in society and just can’t make time for something frivolous like knitting.

Me? I’m frivolously knitting up a pair of fingerless mitts from a ball of Chroma in colorway seafoam (which I think has been discontinued). I’ve also been cheating on it here and there with headbands and coin purses. Really, I must have all the time in the world because I seem to have a different project in every room of my home and every bag I carry around. Being a hard-core knitter means that I have so much patience its leaking out of my ears, right?

So in between whiling away my endless free hours on a pair of fingerless gloves, I managed to get a label stitched on to my Pie Are Square shawl…

… and get to the post office to ship it to my mom.

I was only the fourth person in line at the post office that morning. Still, it took 35 minutes to get to the counter. I spent those 35 minutes awkwardly knitting a few rounds. Everyone else who was standing in that line stared at their phone/fussed at their fidgety children/glared at the postal workers/sighed a lot.

When my turn finally came, I tucked my green knitting away and presented my unsealed US Postal Service Approved Priority Mail box for inspection. Mr. Postal Worker told me it came with $50 of insurance. I said that was fine. He poked his grubby fingers in the box and stuffed the Pie Are Square shawl a little further down while asking me if I wanted to add more insurance. No, I said. Then he asked how much my package was worth.

I pasted a smile on my face and told him “Its priceless. Its a handmade shawl for my mother and no amount of insurance can replace it but $50 is fine.” 

And here was his reply:

“Oh. Yeah. The last time I called my mother she was doing that,” pause while he waves his hands around in the air in a vague sort of way,”crochet thing. I don’t know how you all have the patience for that stuff.”

Which is how I found myself being paid one of those left-handed complements about my patience by a man who first made me wait 35 minutes to ship a package and then made me answer the same question three times in a row. By this time my smile was getting a little strained around the edges.

“Knitting and crochet is about finding the patience to deal with all the annoying crap in life,” I gritted out at him.

“Huh. So its like therapy? I never thought of it like that. That will be $9.95.”

I threw a ten dollar bill at him and walked away without loosing my temper. I had to find somewhere to sit and knit. I’m sure you understand. I took at least half an hour of impractical, time-wasting knitting after that encounter to face the next irritating thing coming my way.

I bet you a zillion dollars Mr. Postal Worker’s mother crochets ferociously after every one of his phone calls. Good thing she has plenty of free time.