Free All Wound Up by Stephanie Pearl–McPhee Page A

one, because even after almost forty years of knitting, I still can’t believe that there’s no way to speed this up. I have to admit, though, that after forty years of trying to figure out where to cut corners, it turns out that knitting just doesn’t work that way. Cutting a corner means what you make is less good, things that are less good are either less durable or funny looking, and either way people wear that stuff less (or not at all) and then you’ve totally wasted your time because you have a sweater with one sleeve that sort of puffs because you didn’t rip back and have a do over when you totally knew that the short rows were funny, and now nobody’s ever going to wear it. For example. Not that I learned that the hard way or anything.
    3. It takes me about sixteen hours to knit a plain pair of sock-weight socks.
    4. I do not knit socks full time.
    5. Clearly, understanding items 3 and 4, my expectations concerning how much sock yarn I should be buying are way too high.
    6. Related to items 3, 4, and 5 above, I may be dangerously delusional… since I understand these things and still don’t think this means I have too much sock yarn.
    7. There is absolutely nothing that can be said to one’s employer to properly explain that you have a knitting deadline for your sister’s baby and really can’t come in to work. I would have better luck getting a day off if I said that all my clothes burned up in a house fire and that coming to work means coming naked.
    8. No matter how interesting it is to me, and no matter how long I think about it, I have to admit that knitting probably moves too slowly to make a good basis for a reality show like
Dancing with the Stars
or
America’s Next Top Model
.
    9. It is okay to use stash yarn. The integrity of the stash does not need to be maintained. It is not a mine shaft that will collapse in on itself and destroy everything if I take something out.
    10. I should not resent it when socks wear out. The average woman weighs 150 pounds and takes between 5,000 and 8,000 steps a day. I should consider it a miracle and be nothing short of astonished if socks last more than a single wearing.

MOTHER’S DAY
    know that I will be voted down by bleeding hearts and sensitive types (and by offspring everywhere who think it’s a grand tradition) but I hate Mother’s Day. I really do. I’ve tried my level best to get behind it, especially when society makes such a big deal out of all the cards, but I hate it. I hate it with a burning passion that rivals my hatred of squirrels. (Long story.) As an experienced mother with more than twenty years on my résumé, I’m going on record to say that I would rather be treated decently throughout the year than have my children try to generate a gift not born of a genuine urge to thank me, but more out of an urge not to look like a complete arse on the day designated for mothers. I’m aware that their motives aren’t authentic, and it rankles.
    When the kids were little, my rage centered around two things. First, it is a grave injustice to set a woman up to have her worth as a mother demonstrated in one heavily loaded day, as in, if you love me you’ll do a good job and this day will be smashing, but if you don’t love me then I will be able to tell, because this Sunday will be the same as last Sunday when you spilled an entire bottle of syrup on the kitchen floor and did nothing but smear it around with a damp cloth, so we had to worry about the cat getting stuck again. Second, I’ve always thought it was brutally unfair that Father’s Day goes down so much better, mostly because the backbone of Father’s Day are the mothers who keep it running right, and that Mother’s Day is, much to its detriment, run by fathers and children who don’t know that what most mothers want on this day isn’t a breakfast in bed that they’ll have to pretend to like and clean up afterward, but to stay in bed and read a book, or have a bath without anyone