Going to the Extreme

My own version of Extreme Knitting

I'm not naming names, but let's just say that some undisclosed number among my five male co-workers seem to be a little bit obsessed with Hooters. Now, I've got no problem with hooters in general. Hey, if you've got em, go right ahead and flaunt em, I say. It's the bad fashion at Hooters that I really take exception to. These uniforms are like some sort of nightmare version of my junior high gym uniform. The shorts too short and an unbecomingly bright color... The big ol' white shoes with big ol' white socks over nylons, which can't help but conjure up the 80s in a bad way... (Not that I wore nylons in junior high gym class, but you get the idea.) What's wrong with being tastefully half-naked, I ask you?

Based on the co-worker obsession, I was not in the slightest bit surprised when, at the kick-off of our week-long business trip last week, very shortly after our flight landed in Atlanta and before our two-hour drive to our final destination, we pulled off the freeway and into the Hooters parking lot for my first Hooters visit ever! (But not my last...yes, there was another visit to a different Hooters on this trip, in which a quantity of alcohol was consumed by yours truly, and which heretofore shall not be further discussed thanks to said quantity of alcohol and its thoroughly unenjoyable after-effects.)

Our waitress was a cute airhead, though whether it was reality or an act, I know not. My co-workers seemed to derive a certain amount of male superiority from cracking a few minor jokes about her airheaded-ness, causing me to feel somewhat indignant on behalf of women and Hooters girls everywhere. (You guys read this? Well, your jokes about our waitresses "genius" behavior were annoying, so there. And get back to work!) The food wasn't very good, which I found inexcusable. And the biggest surprise (I am NOT making this up) was my discovery of an enormous vending machine in the bathroom, maybe five feet wide and three feet tall. What could they be selling in this machine, you may wonder? Feminine products in bulk? Extra large boxes of the birth control method of your choice? Cans of mace and blank restraining order legal forms? Copies of Jane Austen and Kierkegaard so that the Hooters girls can secretly work on their dissertations on their breaks? No, gentle reader, this machine contained "hosiery". Special Hooters girl nylons, $4 a pop, all in "suntan" of course, in various sizes, and, most oddly, I thought...footless. Guess they're more comfortable with the big ol' white shoes and big ol' white socks that way. So, not only do the Hooters girls "get to" hula hoop and turn cartwheels in gym shorts left over from 1982, but they get to spend their tip money buying extra nylons from a vending machine in the john because Hooters Inc. is too damn cheap to buy them for them as an employee benefit? Sheesh.

Ahem.

At any rate, my travel day was a good day for knitting, as you can see from the pic above. I knitted throughout the plane trip, while listening to a book on my iPod, and I knitted through the entire car ride. And, yes, I knitted at Hooters when I wasn't eating my mediocre food. The Hooters girls were kind enough to pose for a picture with me, and I think I'll submit it as an entry for Teri's Extreme Knitting Challenge. True, it's not knitting while rock climbing or snorkeling or flying a plane (I was most impressed by this entry into the Challenge), but people, I had knee surgery just three months ago, after my own extreme sports career had come to a very sudden, flailing, crumpled, snowy, ski-torn halt (albeit a temporary one). I won't be cleared for extreme sports by my doc for a few months, and so in the meantime, Hooters is all the thrill I've got. I wonder if it's one of those things where it will take increasingly great challenges to bring the same thrill? Pretty soon I'll be knitting in strip clubs, tucking stitch markers into g-strings. I'll try to sneak onto the sets of porn films to see if I can get away with knitting in the background of scenes without anyone noticing. Where will it end, I ask??

Erm. Maybe not.

Anyway, back to reality. I did notice in that picture above that, uh, how shall I put it? I am out-hooting the very Hooter girls. Unfortunately for me, I am also out-assing them, but that is as it should be, I suppose, because "God is fair." (I will send a small prize to the first person who can identify the movie reference there, title and actress. Hey, look, an accidental contest!)

And what am I knitting in that pic, you may wonder?


Still Life, with Pillowcase Lace, Patriotic Phonebook, and Hideous Hotel Bedspread

That would be the lace for the Lace-Edged Pillowcase. It's nearly finished by now (well, the knitting is nearly finished).

And just to show you how close to the edge I like to live, and please brace yourself, as some may find this shocking, this is how close I almost came to running out of yarn and therefore knitting on my trip from Utah to our final destination in Georgia:


A close shave

I'd finished up all the knitting on my first snakeskin sock on the plane (couldn't kitchener and weave in tails for fear that my needle would be confiscated as a dangerous weapon).


A lousy picture of Snakey #1, with hotel towel covering bedspread to protect your eyes...

But never fear. There was more yarn in the trunk of the car. Which is a story for another day, I think.