"Officer, Could You Please Issue This Woman A Knitting Citation"

This is Victoria. My neighbor. Well I guess I should stop calling her that since we aren't neighbors anymore. She's my friend. Victoria has a problem. If she is awake, she is knitting. Slink, Slink, Slink, Slink.... this is the sound she makes with those blasted metal knitting needles.

She knits while she home schools, while she cooks, while she watches her kids play sports, she has even rigged up a grocery cart with bungee cords and knits while she shops. Just kidding about the last part. I have benefited from her psychosis (thank you IWU... tens of thousands of dollars for my degree and I finally get to use it). Because of her disorder, I have only the best dish cloths that money can buy. I get them for my birthday, for cutting her daughters hair, etc. "Oh, you're sad... here, have a dish cloth." "Happy Halloween, here's a dish cloth".

At Christmas a friend made me a dish cloth and I knew I was in trouble. I tried to hide it under my mixer. But- here she comes... like a blood hound on a rabbit.

V:"Oh. Where is that from?"

S: "Ah... some lady I barely know. She made me take it."

V: "Stitching looks weird. Where'd she get that thread. I ONLY get mine from Canada. It's made out of only organic cotton watered by priests with pure freshwater from the sea"

Ok, I totally just exaggerated that part. Victoria is not spiteful like that. She is very lovely. Just like her name. VICTORIA"naturally beautiful, dainty- with just a hint of clumsy."

And... she is a morning person. Our houses were so close- you could practically reach out and touch the other. Many mornings I'd come rolling out of bed. Squinty eyed, dragging one foot, rummaging for a piece of cheese or something. She'd say through her window in her dainty British accent... "Oh, you just now getting up? I've been up for 4 hours making bread and praying to Jesus". Luckily I like her a lot or I'd reach through that window and wring her little Canadian neck.

I miss my Victoria. Please, buy the empty lot beside us. I promise, I'll never make fun of you again. And I'll do your laundry for a year. Oh, and by the way, my dish cloths are getting a little shabby.