Crochet Catastrophe!

New Skill
Learning a new skill is always a challenge, but trying to do it when you’ve hit the golden years is a different comedy show! Patience? What’s that?

So, my fabulous friends and I decided to skip the hustle of a night out and opted for an evening in. Yes, you heard that right. We stayed in! Why dress up, drive long distances, get stuck in traffic, or spend ages looking for parking when you can lounge in slippers and comfy clothes? We gathered at my friend’s house, which was conveniently just around the corner, because, let’s be honest, nights out are overrated.

We arrived, and there she was, my friend, extremely proud, ready to share her newest claim to fame: a “life-changing” coffee recipe. The way she hyped it up, you’d think she’d discovered the secret to eternal youth. The cups arrived, all fancy and elegant, but … the coffee was bright yellow. As in, curry yellow. Did we hesitate? Of course not! We bravely took a sip, only to realize that this mixture could double as a paint remover. We politely put the cups down and switched to water for the rest of the evening

The night’s main event was to learn crochet—yes, crochet. Keeping our brains active is essential as we age, and what better way than tangling ourselves in yarn? We were ready, tools in hand. My friend, bless her over-prepared, had laid out every crochet hook known to humankind, along with yarn in more shades than a rainbow. We felt like crochet royalty, fully equipped to create a masterpiece. The dream? A chic scarf or a cute hat. The reality? Well, we’ll get to that.

The challenge began. “How hard could it be?” we naively thought. Turns out, very. The instruction book showed us two ways to hold the hook: the pencil grip and the knife grip. Really? Were we crocheting or auditioning for a martial arts film? It wasn’t long before we declared, “To heck with this!” and summoned the almighty YouTube. Surely, watching a video would make everything clear, right? Wrong. We spent the next hour hitting pause and play, pause and play until our fingers were tangled like a plate of spaghetti.

The yarn transformed into an angry, chaotic knot, and the crochet hook had a mind of its own, constantly slipping away like it had a better place to go. We laughed until our stomachs hurt, mocking each other’s pathetic attempts to produce a single stitch. It was a battle, and let me tell you, crochet won.

Finally, after an eternity, we managed a few wobbly stitches. Did we end up with a scarf? I wish! It was more like a floppy line, a sad thread. But hey, at least we tried!

Raidah Hatem Hatoum