Lead Me Not Into Temptation, I Can Find It For Myself

Dear Yarn Company (you know who you are):

Thank you so much for the (road to hell) catalog that you sent me, along with notification of your giant, end of summer sale. While I'm certain that you are (rubbing your hands gleefully at the thought of the money that will flow your way from my pathetic, unresisting hands) pure in intent, I feel that I need to inform you of my little malady.

There was a time when yarn was, to me, simply yarn. It was pretty enough but I noticed it peripherally at best, and then only if I happened to walk by that section in K-Mart (read my post on trailer trash, and this will become clearer to you). Around the time that I was feverishly unravelling a pink mohair thrift store sweater while riding an exercise bike, and CERTAINLY while I was attempting to pull the mohair out of the gears of the bike, I realized that that innocent time was gone. I could no longer take or leave the yarn. I had become powerless over my addiction.

What I think you do not understand is that words like "Elsebeth Lavold Angora, $3.99 a skein" is to me what the words "free beer" are in that aforementioned trailer park. Likewise the phrases "up to 70% off", "limited time only" and "closeout". I am weak, and I'm not afraid to admit it.

It gets worse, though. See, you and I both know that I have no use whatsoever for 2700 yards of safety-cone-orange yarn in mismatched dyelots. However, offer it for $2.57 a skein, and the idea of a knitted safety vest with gently graduating shades of orange will suddenly seem logical--even appealing to me. I don't have a baby, and I don't have any friends with babies, but put the baby yarn on sale and just watch me stock up on enough yarn to outfit every kid in the cabbage patch. Twice.

I would need to adopt a family of barefoot centipedes in order to make my shamefully huge sock yarn collection seem logical...but I see you have some sock yarns on sale and I'm starting to wonder if the centipedes have any cold-footed cousins. I dislike boucle yarn, but show me a sale on Artful Yarns Legends for $4.79 a ball, and I can see myself in a boucle sweater...even if all you have left are two balls in lime, three in cat puke color, and one that was dropped in the toilet.

It's a sickness, I'm telling you. Lately they're saying that they may make video game addiction a legitimate diagnosis; I say I could take one of those pasty, puny, couch potato teenagers without even trying--but just let him try to come between me and my discount angora blend.

In any case, I have one favor to ask you: I will send you a photo of my yarn stash, now not only accumulated to beyond life expectancy, but well beyond the life expectancy of elephants, blue whales, sea turtles, and even twinkies. Please circulate the photo to all yarn companies. You won't even need to send along a note--it will become apparent that I should be immediately cut off. No responsible yarn company would let me knit in this condition--much less sell me more yarn.

If you cannot do that, then please send me the following:

5 skeins of the Kimono Ribbon in the pink/sage/cream colorway
20 balls of Filature di Crosa Baby Kid Extra in assorted colors
Several of the yarn grab bags
A carpenter and architect to help design and construct the new yarn room on my house
A winning lottery ticket so that I no longer need waste valuable knitting time working
Three extra sets of arms so I can knit four garments simultaneously
Some new foam to fill in my assprint on the couch where I like to knit
400 hours worth of books on tape to listen to while knitting so that I can pretend to be improving my mind (feel free to put trashy novels in covers describing them as some sort of "important" literature)
A maid and a cook to further free up my knitting time
A washer and dryer that will actually fold the clothes and put them away
100 cold, naked people (preferably friendly and fond of knitwear)
Some sort of cure for the need to sleep

Thank you so much for your attention to this matter. I remain

Your addicted knitter
Ms. K

p.s. You're all bastards.
p.p.s. Can I through some of the Nashua Painted Forest onto that order?