I Receive a Delegation

When scurrilous rumors begin to circulate there's so little one can do about it, but I must try to set the record straight. Some persons have suggested that when confronted at Stitches Midwest with great piles of sock yarn in soft fibers and masculine colors, I lost my head and reduced my debit card to a puddle of molten plastic.

Not so.

This, dear readers, is the real reason I now have about fifty balls of assorted sock yarn in my apartment, and since you're reading it here you know it must be true.

It was about eight o'clock at night. I had just curled up on the sofa with a cup of Earl Grey and Framley Parsonage when there was a soft knock at the door.

"My goodness gracious," I thought. "Whoever can it be at this hour?" I threw on my dressing gown so as not to appear immodest and checked my hair in the mirror. When I opened the door, at first I saw nobody.

Then I heard rustling and looked down to find a fuzzy stampede of dozens of balls of sock yarn hustling past my bunny slippers and into the living room.

"Mon dieu!" I said, slipping into French as one often does in such moments. "What in heaven's name is going on?"

The sock yarn gathered in the middle of the rug. We stood, confronting one another, for several seconds before a ball of Regia Silk rolled forward and spoke.



"We represent the Manly Yarn Brotherhood Against Loose-Lipped Slurs," said the Regia. "And we have come from all across the United States and Canada to protest your representation of sock yarns as a bunch of spineless pastels. Do not try to resist our demands. You can't lick us."

"You tell 'em, Harry," shouted a skein of Lang Jawoll at the back.

I need hardly say that I was nonplussed.

"What is it that you want from me?" I said.

"A retraction," said the Regia. "Admit in public that you were wrong."

"And pizza," shouted the Lang Jawoll. "We want a pizza."

"With sausage and green pepper," said a ball of Knit Picks.

"Green peppers give me gas," said the Lang Jawoll.

"So take a pill, Mr. Delicate," said the Knit Picks.

"Kiss my ball band," said the Lang.

"Simmer down," said the Regia, "You're getting off-topic."

But it was too late. The Knit Picks and the Lang Jawoll had already got into a tangle, and then several other balls jumped into the fray.

The Regia tried in vain to restore order. Sock yarn was flying all over the place. I retreated to the bedroom to wait out what was perhaps the quietest riot in history. About an hour later a battered skein of Opal merino rolled in and apologized. "It was rough trip," he said. "The guys were pretty wound up."

I told the delegates they were welcome to spend the night and recuperate, and there began my real problem. I can't get them to leave. They've nested in odd corners and small nooks and will not be moved. What's more, against all odds they seem to be multiplying.

I asked the Regia how reproduction is possible in an all-male population.

"Like you wouldn't know," he said, helping himself to another slice of pizza.