Thursday, November 16, 2006

Knitting, with spilled milk

Last night at SnB a milk carton exploded all over me! Specifically, my pants, my blazer, a few drops on my sweater, a few on the hat I was knitting, a few on the scarf I was wearing. It felt gross, annoying, and even a bit funny. It splashed, most impressively, all over my knitting bag, enough so that 10 minutes later after we'd cleaned up the mess and relocated to another table, the bag was dripping milk on the ground. I kid you not:

bnmilk.jpg
Photo courtesy of Dawn's camera phone


Anyways, we were at a Barnes and Noble, in the cafe. After the milk splashed all over me, the cafe folks couldn't find paper towels (WTF?) so I grabbed a pile of napkins from the table, and started moping myself off. Fellow knitters Jessica and Dawn kindly rescued knitted items from the sopping bag, and concocted all sorts of issues with how the milk had spilled on my irreplacable alpaca from the steppes of somewhere.

The store manager, who arrived during all this, clearly doesn't know much about either dry cleaning or fiber arts, and was prepared to be footing a large bill to cover the damages - a bill that would most likely take the rather nice form of a gift card with which to buy, well, knitting books, of course! He was clearly pleased that I wasn't screaming and shouting at him or about his staff (I'm not that kind of person.) Actually, the situation was pretty darn funny. At a certain point, I found myself trying not to laugh, having to make myself appear seriously concerned about my knitting bag and yarn to merit repayment for damages. Yet I really just wanted to let loose... I mean, I've been spilled upon by cafe staff before, but for some reason, it's never been this funny!

Needless to say, I'm milking the situation for all it's worth.

Har-har-har. I think I've used that line about as much as I can, now.

There is more to the story, of course! But I need to go pack and get organized for the big conference I'll be at this weekend in Washington, DC. I also need to felt those clogs! And take pictures of my newly finished tam. Stay tuned for Part II of the Spilled Milk Saga next week, when we all get to find out about the sum total of my remunerations knitting book fund.

5 comments:

Zarzuela said...

That picture is totally priceless! Can't wait to hear part 2.

Jessica

Anonymous said...

Funny. I really want to hear the conclusion.

I'm just curious as to *how* the milk exploded. Were there enzymatic suicide bombers? Was it pressurized?

Lone Knitter said...

Oh, no! I had coffee spilled on some yarn once, but it was totally my fault. I hope you get some great books!

Lazuli said...

In answer to Rose, as far as I know, and from what the other cafe customers saw, it just kind of teetered off the cart. Only one jug. All the other gallon jugs of whole milk stayed on the cart. I *think* the cap popped of and milk shooted out rather spectacularly.

Sheepish Annie said...

I always seem to be in the way of exploding containers. If you can't see the humor in it then you just aren't trying! ;)

Glad that it made for a good story and I look forward to hearing part II.