Free Hooked for Life by Mary Beth Temple Page A

this. Because I didn’t realize right away… no, the afghan block teased me. I grabbed up the square in progress, started stitching away, and after a half a dozen double crochets,what was in my left hand where the working yarn should be? Nothing.
    I searched through the bag—I saw some purple in there; surely it had to be the new skein of yarn. But no. Since I already had my deli number and there was no possible hope of having it called in the next two hours, I ran outside to check the car. Surely the purple skein had dropped out of my bag and I would rescue it, have a good laugh, and get back to making afghan squares. But no. Maybe another, different project was still in the car. Even if it had been abandoned long ago, there must be a skein of yarn for something in there somewhere. No again. Sadly, I dragged myself back in to the office to face my interminable wait, crochet-less.
    If time flies when you are having fun, it drags like crazy when you have nothing at all to do but watch the fifty people ahead of you transact tedious government business. “Buck up,” I said to myself, “it’s only a couple of hours of your life. You can get through this without having something to do with your hands.” That positive attitude lasted for about five minutes and then my mind began to wander…
    Perhaps I could unravel some of the squares I had already made, and make them again. Hmmmm… no, the idea of undoing all that lovely work made me cringe and the problem with afghan squares is that no matter how interesting the square pattern, odds are, you are going to be a little bored with them by the time you finish them all, so it wasn’t as if I had a burning desire to make more than the thirty-six I had already signed on for. Fifteen minutes down, who knew how many to go?
    Maybe I could use some of the long tails I had left on for sewing up. No, I was going to need those long tails someday soon, and the only thing more irritating than not having anything to crochet during a long wait has to be weaving in 300,000 ends. I knew! I could start sewing some of the finished squares together—that would be productive! Istarted digging in the bag again, but sadly only one completed square sat next to the half-finished one. Could I sew the finished half to the full square? That didn’t make sense, even in my desperate state. Another twenty minutes down.
    This being July, no one was wearing any sweaters or shawls with patterns I could ponder. There weren’t even any handmade blankets on the numerous crying babies. I swear that the clock stopped—if I go to hell when I die, this is what it will be like. I read every word in the forms in my hand and then every article in the weekly free paper. I looked around for anything to use as yarn, wondered if I could go to jail for unraveling the American flag so I could crochet the thread, and sized up the heft of the security guard and wondered if he was armed…
    And then they called my number. Safe! Four minutes later, I was on my way home, lamenting the loss of two good crocheting hours but knowing I was nearer the purple yarn with every passing mile. It was okay to be projectless on the way home—I don’t crochet in the car when I am driving. Well, maybe during traffic jams, a little bit…

It’s Possible I Might Sort Of Be a Yarn Snob
    A t least that’s what my friend Remi tells me. Remi has met no yarn that she cannot see the good in—where I see cheap and scratchy, she sees inexpensive and durable. Where I see fibers not found in nature as a bad thing, she sees easy care and cleaning. Nothing repels baby spit-up like 100 percent acrylic. Where I see fun fur or sparkles and cringe, she sees bright and cheerful and fun. It isn’t that she would say no to some luscious dusty rose alpaca or a big old pile of hand-painted silk; it’s that she wouldn’t say no to some neon orange 100 percent acrylic bargain brand, either. And I would, I definitely would.
    It isn’t that I don’t get