KIP report.
I was at the laundromat, commonly known here in Texas as the "washateria," on Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. I'd been knitting on the leg of a sock for my mom's Christmas present--Broadripples, in Cascade Fixation. Yes, I've done these before, but hey! Different color.
So this guy comes up to me as I'm folding my laundry. Hey, I saw you were knitting. I eye him warily...that's not your typical pick-up line. He thrusts a lavender chenille sweater at me. This is my girlfriend's sweater, and it's missing its tag, and I'm not sure if I should wash it or dry clean it.
I reach out to stroke the chenille. It's a store-bought sweater, and the chenille is lycra-stretchy; my dad gave me something very much like this for Christmas last year. Mine says handwash.
I wrinkle my nose in appraisal. If I told this guy to handwash, would that mean anything to him? Would I want to be the one responsible, anyway, if he destroyed the sweater? Don't wash it, I told him. It'll probably get all pilly.
OK, he said, nodding. Dry clean. I nodded back. Good idea.
Sweet guy, doing laundry for his girlfriend. But isn't it funny that I come off as the fabric-care expert just because I'm knitting? Maybe he knows more about knitters and their yarn obsession tendencies than I give him credit for.
4 Comments:
At least he didn't say, "I saw you were knitting a sock...take a look at my foot!"
Do you know how long it took me before it occurred to me that "washateria" wasn't some kind of Spanglish? Oh, Texas.
I'm glad he didn't want to ruin his girlfriend's sweater. :-)
That's sweet. It reminds me of the time I worked in a lingerie department when I was in high school. *First of all, it's usually pretty amusing to see men come in and have absolutely no idea what they're doing, but that's beside the point.
This man comes in and says he wants to buy something nice for his wife. I ask what size she is and he pulls a piece of paper from his pocket. It has a bunch of numbers written on it--this sweetheart had gone through the laundry and written down sizes from every different piece of clothing he could find! He really wanted this to be a surprise. And he was truly grateful when I explained that, yes, underwear sizes and pants sizes were very different, so it's good that he came in with both! *grin* Can you imagine him buying size 10 panties for his size 10 wife? Yikes!
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