What to Expect After the Election

Every four years Americans engage in a masochistic process known as presidential elections. A woman can get pregnant and celebrate the first birthday of her child before all the fun and festivities are over. Meanwhile her other children can learn from all the political ads on television how to call each other douche bags without really using the verbiage “douche bag”. To further complicate matters, her spouse can find out that not everyone in the family agrees with his or her choice of candidate and / or political party, get called a douche bag – for real - by crazy Uncle Herman, and hung up on by mother-in-law when he or she tells her that perhaps Bill O’Reilly is not such an accurate source of unbiased information. All I can say is I am thankful that I am not this person.

I have decided that presidential elections are a lot like some knitting projects. You get all excited picking out the yarn and the pattern. They seem to go well together. You love the yarn and dream of actually wearing the garment on your date with Aaron Eckhardt or that dude from The Mentalist. He will so fall madly in love with you because of how great the garment is that he takes you away to Fiji and you lie around on the beach all day drinking rum punch and knitting. I digress.

Then you start knitting. Things go well for awhile, but then you find out that the pattern has a couple of errata that is confirmed by checking the website three days after you have thought yourself insane and incapable of reading a knitting pattern. The yarn you loved in the skein really doesn’t seem so exciting and wonderful as you finish the back and contemplate that there are a front and two sleeves left to go.

One night while sitting, watching True Blood, and knitting, your spouse asks what you are working on. After explaining it, aforementioned spouse only says “If you say so.”

Become convinced that complete project is utter crap and you can’t believe that you thought it was a good idea to do this in the first place.

Begin to notice that your friends at knit night no longer respond to your requests for an honest opinion about the project. Begin to notice that several have stopped coming all together after previous week’s heated discussion of whether or not both sleeves were the same length. Realize that people have now started talking religion and politics the moment you hold up your project for scrutiny.

While finishing the project, begin to have doubts about trip to Fiji. Fantasize about making offering to the goddess Pelé instead. Worry that magma is not hot enough to incinerate project.

Wear project out to dinner. Panic when someone asks you whether or not you made said project yourself as cannot figure out if they are being friendly, a fellow knitter, or some random wiseass who thinks its their job to be snarky to strangers. Say project was gift from mother as will elicit sympathy if said person thinks you look pathetic or admiration if person thinks project looks good.

Wear finished project to knit night. Defend choice of yarn, pattern and size. Go home tell spouse that you hate said project as did not live up to expectations, like everything else in life. Do not answer when spouse asks you if statement includes him. Throw self sobbing onto bed because you can’t believe you thought that the knitting fates would toy with you by promising you perfection only delivering much short of that.

No, we knitters are just little old ladies with sticks and string who would know nothing about election color commentary.