Tag Archives: crafting

The Only Dude at Jo-Ann Fabrics.

Posted on by
7

I’ve never had a problem going out and buying things for my lady. Tampons, pantyhose, whatever. I really don’t know why guys have a problem with that stuff. The embarrassment factor is bullshit (as explained by the stand up comedy of Chad Daniels below) –



[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq-PZxaqHso&w=420&h=315]



If anything, going out and getting stuff for the wife is just proof I get laid so I had no problem when Jena asked me to head to Jo-Ann Fabrics to get her some black thread for a sewing project last night. In and out, no big deal. Off to Jo-Ann Fabric.



“experience the creativity” replaced their old, less popular slogan “abandon hope all ye who enter here”





I go in the store, shedding any notion of some Dave Barry-esque idea that I’ll wither and die in a store that doesn’t have beef jerky or whatever. I’m just a dude going into a store to buy a thing. I find the thread, get a few spools and make my way to the register. I notice that with all the stuff around me I’d probably never find myself in this store on my own accord there’s plenty of people who are into this kind of stuff. Different strokes for different folks. I probably wouldn’t like it if some 50 year old cat lady walked into a comic book store and started scoffing at how she couldn’t believe anybody would buy this stuff. I am a modern guy! On to checkout!



I get to the checkout and there’s only four people in line. Sweet. I should be out of there in just a few minutes.



CUT TO: 30 MINUTES LATER



I’m still in goddamn line. What the hell? Four old ladies buying a few things. How the fuck did this happen?



I need to get out of here. It’s been a half hour and there’s still two people ahead of me in line because you don’t just buy things at Jo-Ann Fabric. You talk to the employees about what you’re buying, why you’re buying it, what you bought in the past and what you’ll be buying in the future. I left my cellphone in the car, too so I can’t dick around on facebook to pass the time! There’s a magazine/book rack but it’s full of things that would just bore me to sleep –



1. This is a thing people try to learn? 2. It takes a whole book to learn it?





Shit. I could really use some beef jerky right now. Holy shit! Dave Barry was right! He wasn’t funny but he was right!



I don’t even know what the woman at the register is even trying to do. I think she’s trying to return shoelaces without a receipt because it turns out she doesn’t need them for her birdhouse? They need to get a manager down there? Jesus Christ!



I finally go to the register, the cashier rings me up and I swipe my card. Twenty seconds. A new Jo-Ann Fabrics record! I want to turn to the people in line and say “SEE? IT’S THAT FUCKING EASY!”



I get ready to sign the pad and she tells me my card is declined.



Turns out the transfer to my account didn’t happen until after business close so the money won’t be in until the next business day. Meaning I’ll have to go back to Jo-Ann fabric.



God help me.

Dreaming of Doilies

Posted on by
4

I love crafting tutorials.

What is a crafting tutorial? It’s a tutorial that tells you how to craft something (duh). Sometimes it’s about making your own green grocery bags (have 50 on me). Sometimes it’s about making little girl’s dresses out of dad’s old work shirts (you’d be surprised how many of these there are). Sometimes it’s about repurposing an old thing lying around to be a different old thing lying around (I was wondering what to do with that old Vespa scooter I had lying around. Okay, not true, but I live in uptown. I’m just going to steal some douche-bag hipster’s Vespa to make this).

Many times, you can come up with your own crafting tutorial. Simply put a doily on it.

I’m not kidding. Take a t-shirt and add a doily to it. Take a jar and add a doily to it. Take a cushion and add a doily to it. In fact, I was reading a tutorial that I really liked. It’s about repurposing an old suitcase to be used as a vanity, with hooks under it for towels, and when you close the front of it AAAAAAH IT”S ANOTHER FUCKING DOILY!!!

It used to be Grandpa's suitcase til Grandma got a hold of it...

I think my love of crafting goes back to when I was a kid. In the summers, my brother and I spent our days being watched by a friend of our mom’s who was a Native American (I mean, I bet she still is Native American, but she was also Native American back then). She made her living making crafts out of beads and feathers and porcupine quills off of road kill. I’m not kidding about this… she had bags in the car and if we came across a dead animal, she would carefully (so as not to touch the dead thing) wrap it in a bag and bring it home and boil it. It makes me smile to think of how many fancy ladies bought their oh so authentic Indian jewelry and showed off the dangly porcupine quill earings that they got from a real Indian woman THAT WAS MADE OUT OF ROADKILL.

Growing up, I learned how to do all this crafting. Hell, I probably paid for any daycare expenses by the amount of jewelry I made. I also got to work on feather shields. But the most sacred and holy was the dream catcher. I really had to earn that with her. She told me the stories that her people believed about the dream catcher, how the dreams would get caught in the web, and how the good dreams would be able to find their way to the stones and travel down the feather to the sleeper below, while the bad dreams would get stuck and dry up with the morning sun.

It’s a beautiful story. As I was thinking back to it, I wondered if there was more to it than that, if there was something I wasn’t remembering right. So I hopped in the Googles and looked up dream catchers, and-

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's very authentic.

Another fucking doily.