Close Encounters

Four days a week, I have a 1 1/2 hour commute to and from work. Mornings I can usually doze off on my bus seat, but the afternoons I knit. Normally its a great chance to unwind before I go home: I knit on my socks, listen to knitting podcasts on my iPod, no one sits next to me because I'm wielding 5 sharp pointy sticks. Life is good.

Then, every once in a while you have one of those close encounters of the third kind. I am off in knitting nirvana one afternoon, happily knitting away on yet another sock, a "gentlemen" actually dares to sit next to me. Now just about all the regulars on the bus give me a fair amount of leeway. No one has sat next to me in months, no matter how crowded the bus gets. I refrain from making a few choice comments as the guy bumps my hand, causes my iPod to drop on the floor (thank goodness I bought that really good case hubby insisted on) and generally makes a nuisance of himself for a good 5 minutes. I diligently ignore him: people like this should be ignored, saying anything generally makes them worse, not better.

"Gentlemen": What are you crocheting?

Me: *Off in my own little world with Lime & Violet* Hmm...what did you say?

"Gentlemen": (In voice that is reserved for talking to deaf people) What are you crocheting?

Me: It's not crochet; it's knitting and it's a sock.

"Gentlemen": No, you are crocheting. My grandmother crocheted just like that.

Me: No, this is knitting, I'm working with double pointed needles.

Said gentlemen continued to insist for the next hour that I was crocheting, that knitting must be the new slang term for it, and on and on about his grandmother's crocheting. I refrained from poking him to death with the dpns, but only out of love for the dpns and not wanting to get blood on my socks. Does this qualify me for knitting nirvana now?