A Beer and Six Needles Later

I have heard it said that soldiers and athletes are extremely superstitious. They are loath to change up a winning underwear line up or routine for fear that they will invite bad juju to the scene. If a soldier or a batter believes that wearing a woman's lacy thong will keep them from being shot or continue their homerun streak, they will wear the sexiest, laciest pair (Does a thong truly qualify as a pair?) they can find, probably without washing it in between for fear that Tide not only gets out stains, but also removes good luck from clothing. Of course they don't remember the times that wearing their thong of choice did nothing at all.

For all my talk of mojo and juju, I am not a superstitious person. I believe that science and the laws of probability can explain most phenomena and those it can't I ascribe to the theory of weird crap happens. So, although my tendency is to knit socks from the top down, I don't ascribe any miraculous powers to that type of sock construction. I will have to say, however, I may change my mind.

Back in the long ago, before I knit socks, I decided that it would be nice to knit my new husband's family socks for Christmas. I thought it would be easiest to learn with a worsted weight pattern - not so much crying when ripping 48 stitches as opposed to 64. My first major blunder was confusing a 5 mm and a US size 5. This and heavy worsted led to the creation of the fabled GOOOODDDDDZZZZIIIIILLLLAAAA sock that terrorized Tokyo and had to be destroyed by the Rodan - Mothra tag team. Having absorbed the basic principles of sock knitting, I determined that the good people of Tokyo would be better off if I worked on baby socks until the sock mojo was strong enough in me to fight the prehistoric monster sock DNA.

I was content in my little top down construction sock world. I knit socks in various permutations and patterns. Socks lived on my needles and never complained about being the in between project, the car project, the I can't take one more round of 1200 stitches lace project and the waiting in line project. All was well in my sock universe until I joined the Rocking Sock Club and found out that toe up is in baby! What has followed can only be attributed to the freaking weird theorem of the weird phenomena theory.

I had happily knit my toe. The foot knitted like an easy walk on the beach. The heel increased required a bit more attention, but nothing to make me set my hair on fire and run screaming into the night. Then it happened. Time for the heel decreases. This is the time in Sprockets (SNL reference from Mike Meyers era for the puzzled among you.) vhen ve burn zee pattern und drink eine bier. (Faken deutchen est gut funnen.) I am not one to give up easily. I sat in the pub with my friend, whom I consider the local expert on toe-up sock construction and cast-ons, who was obviously sick, but ever gracious. Yes, I know, only eine arsenholen would make their sick friend look at their screwed up sock, but sock desperation makes one do crazy, inconsiderate things. I wasn't so horrible. I bought the beer. As we were discussing my sock woes, matters became further complicated because somehow in my desperation I now had six double pointed needles in the project instead of five. Oh, the sock mojo was close to needing life support.

So, instead of crying, I made a joke. My first top down sock was for Godzilla's foot. My first toe up sock, a Godzilla condom.

Thankfully neither one of us had any liquid in our mouths so I didn't have to suffer the additional humiliation of having my friend embarrassed by spewing a nose full of beer all over me, the sock, and the table.

Now my sock is in time out for an indeterminate length of time. To restore my sock mojo, I have started a top down pair in Opal. Plain, sock knitting, baby. Just what the sock mojo doctor ordered.