marbles
Clearly I lost my marbles yesterday. At first there was just a little hole in the bag and 1 rolled away when I decided to go into ACMoore. I had a good grip on them for a while, just sort of poking around the store, the new merchandise up front, briefly glancing at the scrap booking aisle then glancing away with a guilty conscience. The paint supply displays caught my attention and I got a little nostalgic as I picked up a couple Sharpies and a Micron bush pen. But I couldn't hold onto them and my marbles at the same time so I put them back promptly. I admired the fresh pads of watercolor papers and thought about how much I really want to get back to C & I. "I should go home right now and do that!" I thought delusionally.
As I walked back a little further in the store, I was determined to studiously avoid the yarn aisle. Alas, I was unprepared for the bear trap right in the main aisle and my little bag of marbles started to rip right open. There they were, two giant wire bins of yarn on clearance! "Oh these are really cheap prices!" said a shopper excitedly coaxing a ball from the bottom between the bars. Another woman with a wild look in her eye, was about to dive into the bin.
"But is there more than one skein of anything?" I asked doubtfully.
"Oh, yes!" she assured me, holding up her little basket with two each of three different yarns.
I found two matching balls of pink washable wool, then two green and an ivory, and embraced them securely in my arms. Mine. Then I picked up a ball of sock yarn and just at that precise moment my marbles started pouring out of my bag like Niagara Falls, dropping all over the floor, bouncing and rolling hither and yon in utter chaos of their sudden freedom. Panicked and slightly embarrassed, I went to get a basket to put the yarn in. When I came back to start collecting up the marbles, what I found was more of the green wool, more ivory, some lovely denim blue, taupe and a couple turquoise. There was another green of silk and bamboo so soft I wanted to spread it, like butter on hot toast. Then I found the black cotton yarn I had once dreamt of making a sweater with and more sock yarn. Next thing I knew, I was shoulder deep in the 2nd bin, my basket was overflowing and most of my marbles long gone and all but forgotten in the feeding frenzy. Other women walked up to the bins, eyed me cautiously as I jealously guarded my gathered collection, and backed away slowly.
Pausing to breathe when I could find no more matching balls, I gazed into my little bag, there were only two marbles left in one corner away from the gaping hole: one blue with a swirl like Cape Cod and one giant Orange shooter with a picture of a little car inside.
"You have to put something back," I sternly told myself. "You can't buy all of them." I anxiously paced around the yarn cages, trying to remember how to add and multiply and figure out the damage I was about to do to my credit card.
"Put the taupe back," I told myself, "it's not very pretty."
"Put the black wool back and keep the black cotton, it's softer."
"The blue is lovely, but there's not enough for a sweater. There is enough green for a sweater, but are you really going to wear it? Put the green back."
Oh, it was heartbreaking. I tried hard to imagine a color block sweater of pink and ivory, but there just wasn't enough pink. I put it back, then picked it up again. I had to do a lap around the store to clear my head and cool my ardor for the flirtatious, blushing pink yarn. In the end I put the pink back. "There will be other pink yarns," I comforted myself.
SO in the end there was $140 worth of yarn for $70 in two bags going home with me. Sock yarns and sweater yarns that I need to tuck away for winter. I need to hide them in a drawer until the wounds of their brutal attack have a chance to fade.
*SIGH*
At least yarn has no calories.
As I walked back a little further in the store, I was determined to studiously avoid the yarn aisle. Alas, I was unprepared for the bear trap right in the main aisle and my little bag of marbles started to rip right open. There they were, two giant wire bins of yarn on clearance! "Oh these are really cheap prices!" said a shopper excitedly coaxing a ball from the bottom between the bars. Another woman with a wild look in her eye, was about to dive into the bin.
"But is there more than one skein of anything?" I asked doubtfully.
"Oh, yes!" she assured me, holding up her little basket with two each of three different yarns.
I found two matching balls of pink washable wool, then two green and an ivory, and embraced them securely in my arms. Mine. Then I picked up a ball of sock yarn and just at that precise moment my marbles started pouring out of my bag like Niagara Falls, dropping all over the floor, bouncing and rolling hither and yon in utter chaos of their sudden freedom. Panicked and slightly embarrassed, I went to get a basket to put the yarn in. When I came back to start collecting up the marbles, what I found was more of the green wool, more ivory, some lovely denim blue, taupe and a couple turquoise. There was another green of silk and bamboo so soft I wanted to spread it, like butter on hot toast. Then I found the black cotton yarn I had once dreamt of making a sweater with and more sock yarn. Next thing I knew, I was shoulder deep in the 2nd bin, my basket was overflowing and most of my marbles long gone and all but forgotten in the feeding frenzy. Other women walked up to the bins, eyed me cautiously as I jealously guarded my gathered collection, and backed away slowly.
Pausing to breathe when I could find no more matching balls, I gazed into my little bag, there were only two marbles left in one corner away from the gaping hole: one blue with a swirl like Cape Cod and one giant Orange shooter with a picture of a little car inside.
"You have to put something back," I sternly told myself. "You can't buy all of them." I anxiously paced around the yarn cages, trying to remember how to add and multiply and figure out the damage I was about to do to my credit card.
"Put the taupe back," I told myself, "it's not very pretty."
"Put the black wool back and keep the black cotton, it's softer."
"The blue is lovely, but there's not enough for a sweater. There is enough green for a sweater, but are you really going to wear it? Put the green back."
Oh, it was heartbreaking. I tried hard to imagine a color block sweater of pink and ivory, but there just wasn't enough pink. I put it back, then picked it up again. I had to do a lap around the store to clear my head and cool my ardor for the flirtatious, blushing pink yarn. In the end I put the pink back. "There will be other pink yarns," I comforted myself.
SO in the end there was $140 worth of yarn for $70 in two bags going home with me. Sock yarns and sweater yarns that I need to tuck away for winter. I need to hide them in a drawer until the wounds of their brutal attack have a chance to fade.
*SIGH*
At least yarn has no calories.