Monday, October 08, 2007

Music: Kaiser Chiefs - Every Day I Love You Less
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Do not be deceived! This post is not actually about my knitting hobby. Only the setting and circumstances have to do with knitting. This will actually be one of my good old fashioned "I hate the Upper Middle Class" rants.

I know that sounds hypocritical, but honestly the social practices of the UMC are nothing short of pathetic. In this area, Sweet 16 parties are treated like the old debutante balls of the South but with shorter skirts and more plastic surgery, parent involvement in a child's education is limited to between the hours of 5 and 9 so long as business concerns do not interrupt, people whine and complain about the "Mexicans" bringing drugs and crime in to their neighborhoods while never bothering to notice the bongs and stashboxes in Junior's room, and the incredibly bored stay-at-home-former-trophy-wife moms take up all sorts of little hobbies that they can brag about without ever actually investing any time in them.

I hate the hypocrites of the Upper Middle Class and I am terrified that I will someday become one of them.

That last section of the rant comes from a recent trip I made to a nearby yarn store. In all honesty, I'm not too much a fan of this place because the customers usually consist of bitter soccer moms or abnormally surly old ladies. Two of the three staff members are pretty nice to me, but the owner always treats me like I'm going to steal something or just generally don't belong in her store. They are all locals. Guess their socio-economic status.

There is, however, one lady at this store who I think is just the best despite never having talked to her, only listened. She's not from around here and she doesn't work for the store, but she teaches some classes there and that was all I knew about her until recently. I happened to be buying yarn on a day where she had stayed after one of her classes to just sit and relax. I got to listen to her talk to some of the other ladies while I used the store's ball-winder thingy (which the owner always acts like I'm going to break). She talked about the charity work that she did with her church and how they had a program with the women's prison where the inmates learned to crochet shawls and blankets for homeless shelters. She talked so glowingly about the inmates and when she saw one of the other ladies getting frustrated with whatever she was working on she offered kind advice and encouragement. Basically, think exactly what you could wish for in a grandma. That was this lady.

Then some small chunky lady wearing too much jewelry and an obviously expensive coat bursts through the door carrying two large shopping, almost knocking over a display. She shuffled over to the teacher and interrupted a story I had rather been enjoying mid sentence to plop down the two bags. The woman with the jewelry said she was glad she'd caught the teacher while she was still in town because she had "finished" her project and needed it to be sew together and would the teacher's usual rate still apply.

Let me simplify that: This woman said she had "finished" the coat she "made" but now needed someone else to put the pieces together. How the fuck is that "finished"? That's not "finished." That's "I made a bunch of fucking useless rectangles and don't have time enough in my busy schedule of spending money and pretending to be interested in my kids to learn how to put the goddamned pieces together in to something I can wear and brag about having made." I was dumbfounded. This woman would honestly rather pay someone an hourly rate (not a cheap one, either) to do part of her hobby for her than learn to do it herself. I would also like to point out, as someone who kinda knows what they're doing in this particular hobby, that the sewing would have been so easy to accomplish after looking at a fucking diagram available anywhere on the Internet or any of the thousands of knitting books out there that my DEAD DOG PROBABLY COULD HAVE SEWN UP THE FUCKING COAT. WITHOUT OPPOSABLE THUMBS. POST-CREMATION.

The elderly lady agreed to the usual rate. I don't begrudge that. I say, if you can make money off of morons like the Jewelry Lady then Go Granny, Go. But honestly, Jewelry Lady, if you're going to take up a hobby, actually learn how to do the damned thing or stick to projects that don't require you to fucking HIRE someone to finish it for you. Would you take up baking and then say "But I don't put things in pans"? Or learn to golf and go "Excuse me but would you mind putting for me? I'll give you 10 bucks."

Maybe I'm overreacting (actually I *know* I'm overreacting) but it's shit like this that drives me crazy about this area. Even when these people are supposedly doing things that are fun, they still need someone of the else to do part of it for them.
This transmission logged byErisSaid on 1:54 PM

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