We are everywhere.

Yesterday I was tired.  Well, I've been tired for days, but this was the kind of tired where I squeezed every last drop of snooze-alarmed sleep out of the morning, threw on whatever was handy and failed to comb my hair before it dried (a little funny) on its own.

I left the house in jeans, black suede sneakers and my Maryland S&W baseball shirt from 2 years ago.  It is my favorite, but I rarely wear it out, as I am a little dubious about the flattering.

So I go to work and get through the day and after that I get my list together and go to the market as there is not so much food in the house.  In my Whole Foods there is a brief cheese filled transition between vegetables and fish and I usually book through it pretty quick because there is little in the world that makes me queasier than the smell of fish. 

What I am saying is that I've closed off my senses to get by, so it takes me a minute to respond to the guy in waders who is trying to get my attention.  I'm looking around trying to figure out what he's trying to tell me and gradually my awareness comes back on line and I realize what he is saying is "Does that say Maryland Sheep and Wool"?

Why yes.  It does.

Turns out his mom goes every year.  She's crazy about wool and knitting and spinning, crazy weird as well as crazy fond. 

We get like that.  Lots of fleece? I ask.

Oh yeah, the attic is full.

It happens.  I'm going to Rhinebeck this weekend.

He nods sagely - yes, that's a good one.

And then he grinned in a companionable way - an initiate to the mystery, if not necessarily an acolyte - and returned to his fish.

I grinned back and returned to escaping the fish smell.

I almost went back and asked who his mother was.  I mean, it IS possible we've met.
But then I started thinking about the fact that this man equates me with his mom.  Even though I doubt there were 6 years between us.  That is moderately less warming.

On the way home from SOAR there was a wicked cool car from the 40s, done up in matte paint and four hooded dudes who fancied themselves quite a lot.  The car was cool, enough so that we stopped to comment and admire.  And these guys were horrified; we were not the desired demographic.  The distress was so palpable it was funny. 

Comments

[anne]

awww! it was such a good start, too. he sounds nice. and that yarn in the attic? aren't you even a little curious?
(this is why i get into trouble wherever i go . . . everyone is nice, and has a mystery to plunge).

[debbie]

You should have asked him on a date- can you imagine having her as a mother-in-law??????

[lisa]

Aha! I am not at all surpised you are an omphaloskeptic (?-saw it down below). This is one of my very favorite words (or rather omphaloskepsis). Another is Maenad-I think 'knitting maenads' or something might be good. I'm starting to realize that at 46 I'm a generation older than what is 'hip'!

[Heather Ordover]

Okay, so when you've recovered...you're now tagged.

[Lucia]

Maybe he thought his mom would approve of you :).

I was telling my boss about Rhinebeck and said you might not think knitters would be a drinking crowd, but you would be wrong; he said "my grandma always knitted with a Manhattan on the table next to her -- but, come to think of it, that's how she did most things." I hope myself to be a grandma someday, might be one already if I weren't so danged slow. Then I could just do the easy fun stuff.

[Ellen]

For a minute, I thought YOUR fish guy was MY fish guy. The fish guy at my Whole Foods remarked on my MDS&W tee shirt, but it was because his girlfriend was a knitter and had wanted to go. When I was at Penland this summer, I took all of my MDS&W tee shirts and had over a week's worth. I didn't realize I had been going that long.

[Maureen]

Abby, I thank you for standing up for the grandmothers; though I'm not one, I'm in the age range and I tell ya, I've never felt age discrimination until I started knitting 3 years ago. I worked in the computer field since becoming a programmer in 1969 and I'm used to working with lots of young people who treat me as an equal. But, over and over again in the knitting blogs and knitting groups, S&B, etc. the 'not your grandma's knitting' thing comes up, and it feels like a door was just slammed in my face. So thanks.

And, Juno, 6 years isn't that much difference. If he didn't smell like fish, would you look at him differently? Imagine a Mother-in-law with an attic full of fleece. Wait a minute! Maybe that was a metaphor.

[Heather Ordover]

Yeah, I was rather horrified to realize I'm teaching Freshman Comp to kids who are TWENTY TWO years younger than me. Not my demographic at ALL any more.
What's that about?!
And then when they found out I was heading to a spinning conference...ai yi yi...

Email me at MamaOKnits [at] gmail [dot] com and I can send you all the drunken audio files you'd like--including the panel (which almost recorded everyone) which...um...was more hungover than drunken.

I'm lucky to have met you at SOAR--keep me posted on your travels to my neck of the desert!

[anj]

recently at our farmer's market one of our purveyors of veggies was all.. hey.. isn't that a MDSW shirt to Sue.. and she said it was.. he had been taken as a younger child (he was what.. 16 now?) and he knew his mother was a wee bit obsessed. We had the same type of talk with him. We are indeed everywhere.

[sarah]

I've rarely been anyone else's desired demographic – except my husband's – but I don't often care. I'm me.

He wasn't necessarily equating you with his mom: he'd found a connection and wanted to talk to you. YOU :-)

[fibergal]

As to the guys with the cars, more fool them. You may be the very coolest person on the planet. They should be so lucky as to fall to your feet and worship your coolness. What blind eyes some people have. Blind brains too.

[denny]

Oh yeah, cool people don't sweat.

[denny]

what?????? I'm not cool. When did I out grow cool?
I thought I was cool. When did I grow up?

[Donna]

Those kind of assumptions are maddening. I'm not the desired demographic for the car I own, a 1914 Model T. I can't tell you how many times a 60+ man has stood next to my car and tried to show off by explaining to me how difficult it is to start. If I've got the time and I'm in that kind of mood, I'll crank it over.

The startled and embarrassed looks are priceless.

[Abby Franquemont]

So, I get this reaction that's kinda related, whenever I hear that "Knitting isn't just for your grandma anymore." I want to glare at the person who said it, and ask, "Just what the hell is so bad about your grandma, anyway?" or point out that my great-grandma was a cigar-smoking, bloomer-wearing suffragette who went to college, loved the Red Sox, and made handmade things I still have even though she died before I was born.

So there. My mom and grandma and great-grandma are all too cool for people who think they aren't cool. And so am I. And so are you.

[Judy G.]

They say men are attracted to women like their mothers. Is that a good thing? Maybe you should have found out who the mother is!

On the other hand, I refer you to the movie "How Stella Got her Groove Back". One of my favourites, and gives me hope for the good sense of younger men who look for more than an empty-headed fashion doll.

[Sarah]

Yep. Being the non-desired demographic can be funny. Might not happen so often if others weren't trying so desperately to impress. My interest frequently plummets the cool quotient. Sorry kids!

[Sarahfish]

I'm trying to see the good in people these days, so could it be that he just thought you might get along with his mum? You know. Kindred spirits and such. I was hoping while I read that you were going to say that he put you in touch with his mum who gave you an attic full of fibre because she can't use it now what with the arthritis and weak eyes. We can all hope... ;)

I drive a '71 Karmann Ghia Cabriolet, and the interest I get from people when I drive it is really funny if you stop to think about it. Some are generally interested in the car and can spout tech details with the best of them, and some are just looking to impress me with what they think are technical details of the car... The best though is when some guy sees the car without me, admires it, realizes that I belong to it and changes his tune to "hey girlie, hot car you got there". Makes me laugh every time... :)

[Mel]

I figure that as we get into the "not the desired demographic" range we can either be bitter at the inevitability of it or we can have fun with it and freak out the young folks. You chose wisely.

Of course, I bought a bottle of wine yesterday at my local supermarket, a chain who have a corporate policy of carding anyone who "looks under 45" and who recently made news by refusing to sell wine to a 64 year old woman who had forgotten her driver's license. I didn't get carded. *sigh*

[Lyssa]

and so the worlds collide. over and over again.

mine are about to (again) as i bring my sig. other to rhinebeck this year! yowza! :) we're staying at his aunt's house across the river.

hopefully i'll get to say hello!

[duni]

i love when worlds collide. i hope to see you up there on saturday!

[Dr. Steph]

For me, it's being called M'am. I hate it.

Though the horrifying of young folk is very satisfying.

[seizuresalad]

"we were not the desired demographic" - I feel that frequently. I play in a rock sort of band, 15 years ago this felt cool - now it feels a bit like I'm Fleetwood Mac trying to have a conversation with Broken Social Scene, and they are snickering quietly.

Damn punk kids.

I love the feeling of community, the secret sister-brotherhood you described that seems to follow the fibre-obsessed.

[heather]

love the random moments when non-fiber people and fiber people collide. when i met the boy's cousin i had recently returned from rhinebeck and i was struggling to explain to him that i had been at this "wool festival thing? like a state fair?" imagine my surprise when the first thing out of his mouth was "you went to rhinebeck?" turns out long ago his mother raised sheep and sold the fleece at rhinebeck and MS&W. said cousin used to work the lamb chili booth with his siblings. he was perplexed that i was headed there not only voluntarily but happily, and i was just sad that his mom had sold the farm and gone on to a different business. good times.