It started with a simple question....

“Do you knit?” My friend Anne was over for the day and we had been talking pleasantly about books and movies on the floor of my bedroom, when she espied my long-neglected bag of knitting. She of course asked the inevitable.

“Occasionally,” I answered, sighing a little while trying to recall the last time I had actually completed a knitting project. Anne then rummaged through the bag and drew out my largest pair of needles, made of fat, grey plastic.

“Ooo,” she gasped and excitedly began fiddling with the needles, probably imagining swords in her hands and orcs waiting to be killed. I amusedly watched her for a minute or two and was struck with a thought.

“Here, do you want to see the rest of my needles?” She was all enthusiasm and I drew out my needle case. Unzipping it, I opened the flaps to reveal a glorious rainbow of metallic pink, grey, blue and green needles. Her happiness knew no bounds and she pulled out various needles which struck her fancy. I dumped the rest of them on the carpet, and thus it began: a full two hours or more of mindless fun using knitting needles.

First, as we were listening to music [I don’t remember what exactly; something fun with a good rhythm], we each grabbed two needles and began to beat out the time, on other needles, on the bedside table, the balls of yarn, the carpet, books pulled off the shelf.

We tired of that soon enough, and Anne began another form of amusement. Laying two needles of the same size a few inches apart on the floor, she set another needle on top and let it go, watching it roll off the tapered ends of the bottom needles. I joined her, and we experimented with different colors, sizes and numbers of needles.

“Oh, pretty” we would exclaim, and “that’s so cool” and a drawn out “sweeeeeeeeet”. As the saying goes, simple people take pleasure in simple things.

Soon Anne got another brilliant idea, propped up some balls of yarn, and began to throw a knitting needle at a ball, trying to get the needle to stick in the yarn like a dart in a target. I did the same for a little while, but soon tired of it [becoming discouraged because my needles never stuck in the yarn correctly]. So I picked up another two needles and started banging them together or something idiotic.

Anne again poked through my knitting supplies, and found a small packet of plastic rings. She asked me what they were for.

“No idea. They came with one of my knitting kits, and I haven’t found out yet what they’re used for.” She opened the bag and slipped them onto a knitting needle.

I was delighted and I grabbed the needle, shaking it like a maraca.

“We should start our own Knitting Needle band,” I joked. We shared a chuckle.

Then I made a wondrous discovery.

I found that if you hit the needle with the rings just so, the rings go shooting up the needle, spinning vigorously and falling back down with a clatter.

“Look, look!” I shouted, extremely pleased. Anne was enthralled, of course; she tried it herself.

“This should be like a kids’ toy, or something,” she said after repeatedly spanking the needle in glee. Unfortunately she missed her mark and whacked her hand, crumbling over in pain, but laughing. Perhaps the kids’ toy idea wasn’t that hot.

She again rapped her knuckles two or three more times, and hurriedly gave the needle and rings back to me. We sat bedazzled as I struck the two metallic instruments together again and again and the grey rings jumped and leaped like a troop of Dufflepuds.

About this time, we changed CDs to “The Return of the King”. Something of Tolkien’s ingenuity must have rubbed off on us, because we found our means of greatest entertainment. Eureka!

If one smacks a knitting needle lying on the floor hard enough, with another needle, the former will hop into the air, somehow the result of the extreme force. This itself was enough to amuse. But then we began to hit the needle as fast as we could, and found that it made the needle “dance” in the air. It looked as if it were floating.

Naturally, a diversion like this is not without its dangers, which we realized [rather painfully, maybe]. So we wrapped pillowcases over our heads, to protect against any needles which have been struck the wrong way, and thus go flying through the air [likely to whap an innocent head].

We laughed until we were breathless, rolling on the floor, puffing like the Big Bad Wolf. It was comical. One had to be there to fully appreciate the hilarity of the situation. Imagine, if you can, two teenage girls sprawled on the floor of a tiny bedroom, listening to “The Return of the King”, and intently thumping knitting needles; with pillowcases draped over their heads.

I heard someone come up the stairs.

“Someone’s coming!” I hissed. We both paused for a second.

“Quick, keep going!” breathed Anne, and we went back to our hammering, giggling like schoolgirls. We were desperately hoping somebody would peek in the door and see us at our mind-boggling work.

Sadly the door remained closed.

We eventually ran out of breath, so we took off our protective gear and set aside the knitting needles. Just as we got up and stretched, the door opened with a knock, and my brother stared at us quizzically.

“Dinner’s ready,” he said blandly. I nodded and he turned to leave. A thought struck him and he looked at us again.

“What the heck were you guys doing up here?”

Anne and I looked at each other; and laughed.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
PS. Anne also discovered a way to make a "person" out of: a ball of yarn for a body, pieces of blue yarn for hair, and needles for eyes, nose and mouth; he looked something like Elvis, actually. Sadly, he ended up getting knocked over and destroyed....
Hopefully he will be satisfied with just being mentioned here.
We couldn't pay for the funeral.