A Visit from the Yarn Fairy

Today you get two Two TWO updates for the price of one!

I'm sure you're excited.

First off, I'm going to tell you about something that happened at school a couple of months ago. (I was too lazy to post about it right away.)

I am a substitute teacher.

A lot of people, when they think of substitute teaching, especially subbing high school as I do, imagine some poor harassed soul dodging spitballs, attempting vainly to enforce some semblance of order, fighting to be heard over all the jeering, and wondering how her life went so wrong as to bring her here. There are definitely days like that, but fortunately these are few and far between (for me, anyway). I like being a substitute teacher and wouldn't mind continuing to be one for a few years yet if it paid better or offered benefits.

But anyway.

People don't tend to know that there is a lot of down time in subbing. Teachers have no way to know for sure who they're getting--or even if this person is familiar with the subject of the class--let alone whether this person is sane or competent. (Some subs are craaaaaazy! And is it any wonder with some of the crap we put up with?) Smart teachers learn fairly quickly not to assign anything to complicated. This means I spend a lot of time cooling my heels while kids watch a video, read, do worksheets, do bookwork, or just have a "study period." I wrote the rough draft to this blog entry while watching an English class write a timed in-class essay.

This is all a long-winded way of saying I get a lot of crocheting done at school. I read too, but the crochet is less attention-stealing.

And that is all to lead up to my story. We English majors can get wordy once we get going. We can't help it.

The story is this:

A while back I was scheduled to sub for the same class for two non-consecutive days in the same week. On the first day, I don't know, let's say it was Tuesday, I spent a lot of time working on my latest abomination (to be featured here when I finish it) and a little time explaining myself and my horrible creation to stunned students. ("I was in a hurry when I picked the yarn.")

That afternoon at the end of the day I found this under the front driver's-side wheel of my car:


How did it get there? Who was responsible? I don't know. The popular theory (popular with me anyway) is that some student who regards me as his or her favorite sub saw me crocheting in class and then saw the yarn matching my terrible project in the front seat of my car (I should leave yarn in my car more often), put two and two together, and took it upon him or herself to provide me with yarn that is more tasteful (defined as yarn that does not cause you to try to stab yourself in the eyes when you see it).

Why put this yarn under my tire?

I don't know. Kids are weird. Or maybe he or she put it on the windshield and it rolled off.

The other theory, let's call it "The Lame Theory," is that some other yarn enthusiast was carting yarn around the parking lot when a ball of it fell out of her arms or bag or whatever and happened to roll under my car. Let us put this silliness aside, shall we? I mean, that's a tall order to expect somebody to swallow. We all know people give thoughtful gifts to their substitute teachers all the time, right? Right???

Well, just because it's never happened before doesn't mean it can't happen now.

Just in case, I did bring the mystery yarn back with me to school that Friday, where it sat on my desk waiting to be recognized by a student who would either claim it or take credit for it. A couple of kids agreed that it was weird that I would find it under my car, but nobody fessed up to being responsible for its appearance.

So I tried. What else could I do? The yarn's mine now, and I still don't know how it got there.

****

Now for an actual project I've completed. I made this while waiting for my Sims to load:

Sims are slow little buggers.

If the yarn looks familiar it's because you have seen it before. This is the yarn I scavenged from all those sweaters. I still have tons left over.

The scarf itself is in the neighborhood of 11 feet long. I didn't use a pattern or anything. I just chained until it looked like I had a decent length (boy did I) and went from there.

I wanted a long scarf, but this is crazy long. If I hang it from my neck (without wrapping it around at all) it nearly reaches the floor. It's pretty wide, too, (8 inches) making it a lot of scarf to handle.

I haven't worn it out yet, but the rainy season is finally starting (here in December) so we'll see what happens.