(FREE STUFF – HUMOR)

I own a sewing machine, a gift from my in-laws many years ago.

Don’t go hating my in-laws, because it was my brilliant idea to ask for a sewing machine that Christmas. I figured if I was going to be a stay-at-home mom, I should probably figure out how to work a sewing machine. In case I was staying at home, and then something suddenly needed to be … sewn.

Yeah, I know.

Anyway, it arrived in a big box two weeks before Christmas, all wrapped up in lovely holiday paper, and Mark placed it under the tree.

Mark’s family is way more organized than I am, so it sat under the Christmas tree for quite a while all by itself.  Every time I walked through the room, there would be a happy little thrill of anticipation …

Oooohh, a nice big present for me! That is so awesome!

And then I would remember it was a sewing machine, and I would be all …

Oh yeah. A sewing machine. Awesome.

On Christmas morning, when I unwrapped and opened the gift, it turned out to be a sewing machine.

Sigh.

Alright, how bad could it be, right? I would learn how to sew and I would make stuff! Maybe tablecloths or Halloween costumes or cute little dresses or … socks. I would be all crafty and accomplished and awesome! I would make pillowcases! Hats! I would have patterns and lovely pinking shears and I would cut off gorgeous lengths of fabric from the bolts of fabric at the fabric store and I would … make things! All kinds of fashionable gorgeous things!

This was going to be awesome!

What followed was the entirety of my career as seamstress/fashion designer/sock maker.

Here’s what I learned during those three hours:

Threading a sewing machine requires patience and a willingness to follow complicated detailed instructions.

If you thread a sewing machine without patience and direction following, and then try to sew two pieces of fabric together? It will look as though you are sewing fabric together, but really you are just pounding useless holes in fabric with a sharp thing.

If you thread the machine again without patience or direction following? It will look as though you are sewing two pieces of fabric together, but really you are making a giant horrific tangle of knotted thread that whips about and gets caught and then jams the machine into a stalled silence.

If you attempt to thread the machine again without patience or direction following, your husband will hold up the manual and say, “I bet it says in here how to thread the machine.”  This will cause you to pound angrily on the top of the machine as your husband testily lectures you about appreciating a gift from his parents.

If you then step back and say, “Fine, you do it, smart-ass husband of mine,” it will turn out that he is in fact able to thread the sewing machine with a minimum of reliance on the manual.

If you then question said husband about this surprising girly-type skill, he will share that he took a Sewing Class in high school, and that he once successfully sewed together a duffel bag.

If you then mock said husband mercilessly about whether he also had to make a frilly apron and a strapless summer frock in that sewing class? He will get all pissed off and suggest that it would not have been such a terrible idea for you to have taken a few Home Economics classes along the way.

OK, and the machine is threaded!

This is going to be awesome!

You sew two small squares of fabric together.

Yay!

You look around for other things to sew.

Rummage through your closet.

You don’t wear this pair of pants or this blouse anymore. This will be awesome! You will transform these two cast-off items of clothing into something new and fabulous!

Yay!

You don’t actually have pinking shears or any scissors sharp enough to cut this fabric.

So you content yourself with just sewing the blouse right onto the front of the pants.

This is just practice, after all.

You sew about 4000 lines of sewing attachment. No way this blouse is ever coming free from these pants.

Of course, no way the pants can ever be worn again, because not only have you sewn a blouse to the front of them, you have sewn through both sides of the pants.

It’s ART!

Sew, sew, sew … there is no blouse left, no pants.

From these two rejected items, you have created … BLANTS!

OK, and now you are bored.

Genius is like that — it gets bored easily.

So you pack up the sewing machine and put it your closet.

Where it sits for many years.

You pack it up and move it to Oregon with you and stick it in a closet.

Until your older daughter Maj, who is several years younger than the blants, digs the sewing machine out of the closet and asks if she can use it.

“Sure, babe. But I don’t have the manual. No way you’re going to figure that thing out without the manual.”

Maj turns to her daddy, earnest and puzzled. “What sort of woman doesn’t keep the manual for her sewing machine?”

I swear she said that.

And then?

Mark reached into the filing cabinet next to his desk and pulled out … the sewing machine manual.

I swear that he did.

And together, they threaded the sewing machine.

I live with crazy people.