Silly Assumptions

So I had breakfast this morning at Panera around 6:30 a.m. I like the 6:30 crowd, it's very gentle. I'll have to try that again one of these days. Of course, it's easier to do so with my knees hurting. If you can't sleep, you might as well do something productive and this morning it was Icy Hot patches. I have never had such instant relief from pain as I get from those darned things.

Then there's my lovely knitting, which almost rated a rant yesterday. The free pattern for the Apple Blossom cardi was error free and turned out beautifully. The pattern I paid for had errata and I received an argument from the designer to boot. She insisted row 14 was a pattern row and I insisted that it wasn't. Guess who hadn't bothered to look at the pattern before telling me that and guess who was right?

Would you ask me that if I was a retailer?

Well, you might.

I have a bunch of yarn listed for sale on Ravelry. I should list more, like all of it, since I'm fully engaged in SABLE (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy) and I've included shipping since I don't want to have to deal with calculating it and sending an invoice and everyting. Pretty nice, no?

I cannot believe the nerve that people have. I have some Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Lightweight listed at retail, which is $22. Now I'll be the first to admit that I probably didn't pay that much for most of it because I've been acquiring it over a very long time. In any case, I paid no less than $19 per skein for it and, trust me, Tina made sure I paid shipping. Now, I don't have a problem paying for shipping. My only complaint is that sometimes I want to choose UPS instead of the USPS and I'm willing to pay for the privilege.

Along comes the Ravelry users. One person wants to buy multiple skeins and, after telling me what she wants, asks if I offer a discount for multiple skeins. Ummm... no. I'm already tossing in shipping, so suck it up.Would you ask the nice retailer (Tina, mentioned above) if she would give you a discount for multiple skeins? Or if she would forego shipping? Probably not because she's a going concern and goodness knows that knitters want her to stay in business because she  has a fantastic eye for color.

Then there was the woman who offered me $20, including shipping for a skein of yarn for which I was asking $22. Again, flat retail... what I paid... and I'm tossing in the shipping. And now you want me to take even more of a loss? The good news was that all I had to tell her was that the yarn had been sold, which it had been, and I'd forgotten to move it to my traded/gifted page. The bad news was that I really wanted to tell her where she could stick her $20. And I couldn't find a nice way to say it. Very, very, very annoying because I really wanted to tell her what I thought about her little offer.

That reminds me. I should probably put a line on my yarn for sale that says I'll give you a 10% discount if you don't make me deal with a post office.

First post

I've had a great number of eating adventures (and other adventures) since I've been out of work and I thought this would be a great place to start sharing them because, for some reason, I seem to attract the weird ones. They range from the short, drunk man who was ready to root for Boston with me (except I was rooting for Vancouver) even though he didn't know anything about  hockey or even who the goalies were to the woman who insisted that the manager at Panera couldn't possibly know if they would be open on Christmas Eve. (She was an absolute trip.)

Then there's always the people who want to mind my business and, somehow, I'm the bad guy when I tell them that I don't need their help. I'm still working on figuring that one out.

Oh, yeah, and the occasional knitting and pug project because everyone who knows me knows I love my pugs. And orchids. I love orchids too!