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I can feel guilty about anything
Mar. 17th, 2011 01:51 pmSo, last week I bought this amazing sweater at the thrift store. It is gorgeous and obviously hand-knit and the person who knit it was no slouch, and it hardly looks worn. (I should post a picture...maybe another day). It's also wool and maybe knit with Cascade, it looks like one of their colorways. It's the kind of thing that you might give to thrift store if a) you were an incredibly ungrateful person who has no appreciation for hand-knits, in which case the knitter who made it for you now hates you, or b) it belonged to your great-aunt who just died.
Here's the quandary: it was hanging on the rack with no tag. I brought it to the register and asked and they said six bucks and I was all, whoa my god, and plunked my money down.
Last night, I brought it to morris practice and there are a bunch of knitters on my team, the kind of knitters (like me) who are crazy for knitting, browse Ravelry all day, spend money on yarn not food...you know (maybe YOU are one too--you people, you know who I'm talking about). As we were discussing how it is possible to find this sort of thing in a thrift store, a third option hit me: maybe it was hanging there with no tag b/c somebody was trying on clothes and carelessly left it in a dressing room and it got hung up and now I am walking around in a sweater that belonged to somebody else who ACTUALLY wanted it and maybe knit it themselves and they are home crying because they stupidly left their sweater in the thrift shop and now it's GONE.
OK, I mean, I have boundaries. Obviously if that happened and they left it there, that is kinda their problem, I mean, what kind of person are you to leave your incredibly gorgeous hand-knit sweater behind? If it were a store-bought something, I would have no guilt whatsoever, but I know how I'd feel if I'd done that with something I'd put time and effort into. That said, I probably will never know the answer to that question unless somebody says, "DUDE THAT'S MY SWEATER WHERE DID YOU GET IT?" And probably, it really was somebody's who died and the tag fell off and now I can take care of it and love it and I shouldn't feel that slightly niggling piece of guilt or worry. Right?
Sure.
Here's the quandary: it was hanging on the rack with no tag. I brought it to the register and asked and they said six bucks and I was all, whoa my god, and plunked my money down.
Last night, I brought it to morris practice and there are a bunch of knitters on my team, the kind of knitters (like me) who are crazy for knitting, browse Ravelry all day, spend money on yarn not food...you know (maybe YOU are one too--you people, you know who I'm talking about). As we were discussing how it is possible to find this sort of thing in a thrift store, a third option hit me: maybe it was hanging there with no tag b/c somebody was trying on clothes and carelessly left it in a dressing room and it got hung up and now I am walking around in a sweater that belonged to somebody else who ACTUALLY wanted it and maybe knit it themselves and they are home crying because they stupidly left their sweater in the thrift shop and now it's GONE.
OK, I mean, I have boundaries. Obviously if that happened and they left it there, that is kinda their problem, I mean, what kind of person are you to leave your incredibly gorgeous hand-knit sweater behind? If it were a store-bought something, I would have no guilt whatsoever, but I know how I'd feel if I'd done that with something I'd put time and effort into. That said, I probably will never know the answer to that question unless somebody says, "DUDE THAT'S MY SWEATER WHERE DID YOU GET IT?" And probably, it really was somebody's who died and the tag fell off and now I can take care of it and love it and I shouldn't feel that slightly niggling piece of guilt or worry. Right?
Sure.