Inmaterial

Friends? I don't have patience. I sort of do, but not generally. Ironic, considering I'm usually always late and am easily distracted by shiny things. My amount of patience is largely determined by my mood, of course. If I have to be somewhere, have a million things to do and/or I have two crazy boys with me, patience has moved to another state and the back of my neck starts to sweat the longer I have to wait. I overreact and don't see logic too clearly. Like this story I'm about to tell you? It's obvious that I am freaking out over nothing really, so remember to laugh.

Case in point: today at JoAnn's. I want to have a dress made by the brilliant Gloria to take on my girls trip next week. Next week! While Gloria assured me that she'll have plenty of time to construct said dress, I still wanted to get the fabric to her asap. After dropping Cody off at the gym, I raced over to JoAnn's to quickly pick out some material and (hopefully) drop it off at Gloria's before racing home to put my Costco groceries in the fridge (what?).

The first 8 minutes of my trip are marvy - I'm cruising through the aisles, the boys are doing great and I find some awesome orange material that just might work for my dress. I call my Mom to ask her a sewing question and as we're chatting I pick out the liner, pull a number for the cutting table, find a zipper and some thread and start to wait my turn. I hang up with my Mom, the number at the cutting table was 58, mine was 64. I take the boys to the bathroom, then go back to wait. Now they're at number 59. Hmm, taking a while. This is where I start to panic and get upset. They had 1 person at the cutting table who was older and clueless, not to mention just chatting it up with the woman she was 'helping'. Finally another employee comes over to help and the woman she calls up has two carts FULL of fabric bolts. And she didn't even know how many yards she needed from each one! No, no she had to consult her 11 year old daughter about that. "honey...what's this for? You want this for your pillow? And why do we have this one....honey?" (11 year old daughter was also watching her 2 year old sister, therefore she was never in the same spot, therefore my patience was packing it's bags).

Oh, and the little number counter dealio on the ceiling? That tells you which number they were on? Yeah, they weren't updating that. So it stayed at 59 forever. Finally ANOTHER employee comes over to help (since there was like 9 of us waiting) and calls out, "Number 60?" Someone in the line informs her that they are past 60. Again, she calls "60?".

They are past 60. I chime in, "The woman at the table is number 61."

"Ok, so no 60?" I tell you what, you call for 60 one more time and I'm gonna set my hair on fire.

Then she calls out, "ok, 61?" Um, they are already helping number 61. Remember when I said that? Yeah. Finally number 62 gets up there, but they still don't update the counter dealio. Of course not, why would they. At this point there 3 women at the cutting counter, none of them being efficient or considerate of the rest of us waiting, they are chatting and slowing folding the material and gushing over each other's projects with, "Oh, how darling!" and "You're so brave to sew your own duvet!". I just need my fabric cut. For the love of all that's holy.

It's been 20 minutes. Somewhere between the slowness, the sweatiness, the 'captain me planet'-ness and general 'I'll cut your material when I'm good and ready' mentality, I'd had it. I pushed my cart in an aisle and got myself to the nearest exit before I went completely postal on this store. I mean, really people!?! That store is like riding a big wheel through molasses. GOOD LAWS. I had been there for an hour - and hour I and my costco butter did not have. I tried to rationalize what happened: "Maybe that older lady was new...it's not like they can make people hurry up and only get 3 bolts cut at once...they were just trying to be nice to their customers...they have no way to determine how long each customer will take...". But I got over that real quick and called my Mom to complain and threatened to open my own fabric store that has a self-serve cutting table, not to mention an express lane. Gah.

Today I will go out once again to find some fabric for my dress. I'll calmy walk in and grab a number for the cutting table before I do anything else. I will be going to another store, of course...I'd sooner die than step foot in that JoAnn's again.