The CR School of Grocery Bagging

There exists certain situations when I am reminded how much of my father's daughter I am. The paternal side of the family tree seems to blossom with obsessive compulsive disorders. They are many and varied. Most of the time I am able to channel these urges into my knitting. I will rip and reknit at the slightest indication of error. I strive for that kind of perfection, hating the tale tale signs of slight variations in gauge and attention. In my knitting the OCD is an ally against the homemade look.

I did not, however, foresee that perhaps this proclivity toward perfection might possibly manifest itself in one of the more mundane aspects of my life. I shop at a grocery store that allows one to bag one's own groceries. I prefer to bag my own groceries. I put the groceries on the belt in a specific order, so that when I bag them the square, heavier items are on the bottom of the bags and the lighter, more amorphous objects are on top. I bag cold with cold, frozen with frozen, and a rotisserie chicken is always, always bagged by itself -- they leak rotisserie goodness all over the bag.

On Saturday, I venture out to above described grocery mart fortified against the cold and the little cold viruses inside my nose. I get my groceries with the help of hubby and choose the bag your own checkout line. Here is where things begin to go horribly wrong. We set up the groceries on the belt. I am waiting at the end when an employee jumps in front of me to bag my groceries, unbidden. Now I know two things. One, I know that I have attended the CR School of Grocery Bagging. My father made sure that the wisdom he gained as a bagger was instilled in us children as soon as we were tall enough to see over the bagging bay. Two, I know that the "helpful" employee hadn't. What happened next was a testament to just how far the art of bagging groceries has been lost to the ages and how closely my right eye came to exploding out of my head.

The lady thought she was being helpful. I assured her she wasn't. The store was busy. They wanted to hustle us out. The best way to do that is to just dump stuff in the bags willy nilly with no appreciation of the order of the grocery universe. The name of the game is speed. In and out. Bag the toilet paper with the rotisserie chicken balanced precariously on top. The toilet paper will absorb the spills.

So, I smiled a tight little smirk, jerked some extra bags off the rack, pushed the cart out of the way and proceeded to rebag my groceries, with the "Have a nice day!" ringing in my ears. I know that in fact she does not want me to have a nice day, because if she did, she would have let me bag my own groceries or at least pretended to have attended the CR School of Grocery Bagging.

By now you are probably wondering what this has to do with knitting. On the surface nothing, but as a philosophy everything. I have enjoyed seeing the number of new knitters picking up the craft. I love watching their enthusiasm, their desire to learn new techniques, and freshness. One of the more disheartening things I have witnessed, though are new knitters bemoaning their lack of speed. Practicing and perfecting the new skill is no longer enough. They sit and watch people who have knitted for 15 plus years and envy the speed at which they produce socks, shawls, hats and other garments. The goal becomes to knit quickly.

There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to knit with speed. Some might argue that I hold my opinions because I do knit pretty fast and have lost touch with what it is like to spend what seems like a lifetime to knit a cuff on a sock. My argument is that knitters should be more aware of craft than the untrained bagger who valued only the speed at which she could get something accomplished and not the quality of the work. Quality beats fast every time. Quality gets you pride each time you wear the garment instead of shame at the glaring errors blazed at lightening speed and inattention to detail.

As experienced a knitter as I am, I still admire the slow, steady beginner who takes the time to check her gauge, double checks the stitch counts on a complicated pattern every couple of rows and strives to absorb the art and craft of knitting. I know when I see this, I have found a kindred spirit.