"Honey, where's the mayonnaise?"

The photo is to remind you that there is knitting content, below. But first, a recent column of mine, concerning the serious male medical condition, GBB:

Of the many medical breakthroughs in recent years, there is one that women everywhere have been praying for: a cure for Gender-Based Blindness. Finally, there is hope.

GBB is a chronic condition that affects only men, rendering them virtually incapable finding things. If you live with a man, bless your heart, no doubt you see evidence of GBB on a daily basis. This disease affects otherwise healthy men, who, when in need of a new bar of soap, for instance, cannot find it without a woman’s help.

You know how it goes: Although you have kept bathroom supplies in the same linen closet for close to 30 years, your husband will never look in it. Even after you instruct him to look in the linen closet, on the third shelf, he’ll scan the contents for several minutes with no luck.

You will have to come up to the bathroom and move a shampoo bottle four inches to the left, thereby revealing a Costco-size case of Irish Spring. Your husband will be dumbfounded and say, well, he could have found it himself if only you had told him it was behind something else.

The inability to look behind things is a primary characteristic of GBB, and it explains why a significant portion of GBB sufferers have trouble with the refrigerator. While a woman may see the fridge as a finite space in which anything can be located in a matter of moments, a man tends to see it as a portal through which perishable foods can be sucked into other dimensions.

Say you ask your husband to get a gallon of milk from the fridge. He can do this only if the milk is at eye-level and in the front row. If, by some unfortunate circumstance, his view of the milk jug is obscured by an object—such as a stick of butter—your husband will simply conclude that the milk does not exist.

Rather than move things around, the better to see behind them, he’ll stand upright with hands on hips, like a would-be Superman waiting for his x-ray vision to kick in. When beams fail to shoot out of his eyes and make the butter transparent, you’ll have to come to his rescue.

The moment you move the butter to another shelf, the milk jug will magically rematerialize. In the defensive tone typical of GBB-positive males, he will whine, “How was I supposed to know it was back there?” (As a noteworthy aside, military analysts are now saying that, had weapons inspectors thought to look behind the butter in Iraqi refrigerators, WMDs would have been discovered during the first round of inspections.)

Gender-Based Blindness has existed for thousands of years, although scientists are just now beginning to understand its impact on our society’s development. Think of how much sooner, for example, the Northwest Passage would have been discovered had a woman led the expedition. As it is, without Sacagawea, Lewis and Clark probably would have given up when they hit the first line of pine trees: “Nope. Let’s head back.”

Researchers’ first step in finding a cure for GBB was differentiating it from other forms of typical male behavior. For example, when a man steps over a pile of cat barf on the rug and insists he didn’t see it, that’s not GBB. Scientists label this kind of conduct as “just plain lazy.”.

Fortunately, while there may be no cure for laziness, there is hope for true GBB. One major pharmaceutical company has developed a pill (under the name “Eureka”) that, when taken daily, significantly improves a man’s ability to find objects, even those not in plain sight. In clinical trials, 89 percent of patients taking Eureka for 8 weeks were able to independently find a new roll of toilet paper under the sink even when it was tucked behind a row of cleaning products. (Sadly, only 5 percent of the same men were able to put the new roll on the spindle, but scientists say they are making strides in that area and hope to have a cure by 2020.)

While regular use of Eureka has been proven highly effective, researchers still must overcome the primary hurdle to the drug’s success: The majority of test subjects can’t find the bottle in the medicine cabinet.

© 2007 by Jessie Raymond

Back to knitting. Before leaving for the weekend, I posted that I planned on starting my Holiday Headstart knitting. The plan was to find a suitable yarn in a suitable color for a suitable pattern for a certain person. That's a lot of variables. I found the pattern and the color for the person, but not the yarn. So I started over. A few times.

Eventually I realized that there was a good supply of yarn staring me in the face: my own yarns from A Piece of Vermont. I also realized that although I have been selling Real Vermonter sock yarn (Made with local wool and mohair! Act now! Operators are standing by!), I have yet to actually knit anything with this stuff. What kind of entrepreneur am I?

I dug out my size 1 needles (realizing as I looked at them that this is, perhaps, why I don't knit a lot of socks) and cast on 68 stitches (!) for the Classy Slip-Up socks from the Knit Socks! book by Betsy Lee McCarthy.

And I learned that this yarn is really awesome!

I had it spun as a 3-ply for extra durability. I planned on a 50/50 wool/mohair mix, but a slip-up (ha ha) at the mill resulted in a 30/70 mohair blend. This seemed to take away from the elasticity of the yarn, but knitted up, it resulted in a very soft, glowing, fuzzy, stretchy fabric.

You can't feel the softness, but can you see the halo?

The problem is that it will probably take me 6 months or so to knit this one pair of socks, provided it's my only project going. And now I want some for myself. So that will take the other 6 months of the year, and my holiday headstart (goal: 12 gifts over 12 months) will fall approximately 11 projects short. Maybe I should take on the Holiday Headstart plan for 2015.

It's a tough time of year for bookkeepers of their husbands' businesses and I've been up to my eyeballs in 941s, 940s, W-2s, 1099s, not to mention quarterly state thingies. That, and a column deadline, have meant very little fiber or Piece of Vermont progress for the first half of this week. But I'm heading out to the temporary dye studio right after I post this, and hopefully I'll be back on track soon enough.

One of the things I'll be working on this week (besides Teyani's sweater yarn--eep) is dyeing up more superwash merino worsted. You can see what it looks like knitted up at Margene's blog, as well as at Knits with a Silent K, a new blog by Kim, who used it for the charity Red Scarf project as often seen on Norma's blog.

Is that enough links? (Better to drop names than stitches.)

The boy came in 3rd at the last tournament (now about 32-2 for the season, I estimate), which was a disappointment but not a crushing blow. I leave you with my daughter and husband on the mats during a break. He is chewing on her toes.

   

Comments

[Marcia]

Those socks will be gorgeous, whenever you get them finished! Now, did you see the new Holiday Headstart button, or is it behind the butter?

[Robin]

That article is a HOOT!!! SO TRUE!!! My husband suffers from it terribly and my oldest son, also. Love the sock yarn. Very pretty shade of blue. Can't wait to see them completed --- someday! HEY! Good things are worth waiting for. Cute pic of daughter and hubby!!!

[margene]

I tell my co-workers and husband to look for something with 'female eyes'. Your column is a hoot!!
I need some RV yarn. Next payday!

[Miss T]

Very, very funny. I love it!

[cheekiemary]

What a hoot - when I had my hysterectomy in the 90's my husband and I decided to leave the ovaries in - 'cause how else would he know where his wallet/keys/library card/passport/the pickles were!

[kitkatknit]

OH OH OH!!! Is that the same colorway that I have the mohair/wool blend worsted in? (And now you are thinking, damn that's where the sock yarn that could be knit on needles larger than these lousy 1's went.) I am speed knitting thru my other socks so I can start my A Piece of Vermont socks maybe by this weekend. Love the GBB article!!

[Carrie]

So true. We even got a new fridge (at eye level, with all glass shelves) and he still tells me we're out of X when I know for a fact X is on the middle shelf, right at the front.

[Grace]

Funny article! So sad but true. In my office of about 20 women, every day, at least one of us fields a "where is my wallet??" call from home. We could probably answer each others calls, because you know it's always in yesterday's pants or on the counter under the newspaper...

[Jane]

OMG, that was SO funny - and SO true! And the socks are fabulous - the softness comes right through the monitor.

[Maia]

The sock looks gorgeous! That pattern stitch is perfect for the yarn.

The pics of hubby and daughter are precious.

[christine]

Oh, I definitely live with a male inflicted with GBB - he's got a bad case of it. He he..........

Love the picture of the daughter giggling! She's precious!

[Gina]

OMG thank you thank you for letting me know about this! My boys suffer (or rather I do) from this. Let's call it Early Onset GBB.

So true.

[Carol]

You are GOOD!!!Now I'll be snickering all afternoon!

[Cynthia]

The cat barf part just kills me. So. Very. True.

Love the family pic, too. Men are so dorky.

[heather]

I hope you got some sort of award for that article! Good stuff.

I heart your yarns, and when you flash stuff knit with it I feel the need to drop everything I'm doing and go get some out of my stash to make something with!

Gaw, your daughter is the cutest! Just look how happy....

[Kristen]

Bravo! You have described the GBB phenomenon to a T!

[Mary]

I think if the UN weapons inspectors had been female, we would have found the damn WMDs! But seriously, I think that GBB explains why my father "lost" the hat I knit for my mother for Christmas, when, in fact, it was underneath her coat on its chair, all along. A definite deficiency of the look-under-things gene. Grrrrr.

Your yarn is loverly! :-)

[Lisak]

Ow! My tummy hurts from laughing.

[trek]

Too funny. I don't usually like gender-based humor (because so many people think it is just funny to bash men these days) but I have to point out that GBB is not the only affliction that needs research. Independent analysis has revealed that there is a direct correlation between the inability to put the new roll on the spindle (in the correct orientation, if you please) and the inability to lower the seat and lid after use. Researchers have determined that there is a pair of genes on the y-chromosome that suppresses the inclination to locate and load and the inclination to lower and close. They are labeling the resulting condition L3DD: Locate, Load, and Lower Deficit Disorder.

[Kim]

My name has been dropped - I feel so famous now! And I so love the colorway in the top photo....drool...

[--Deb]

Tee hee!!

And I love the photos!

[Amanda]

Too funny and too true! :) My husband always claims it's a genetic leftover from when he was a "hunter" and we women were "gatherers". If it's not moving, he can't see it. Heh. :)

[Gina]

Hey Jessie, I am thinking about getting into making felted things like small dolls or whatever. Is there somewhere online where those like yourself list their websites by region? I'd love to find someone locally to save shipping, but it might be just a pipe dream...

Oh and BTW, when I looked at the comments, Christine's name is listed for my comment. My name is then below hers. Weird! Not that it matters, but I'm the one that said:

OMG thank you thank you for letting me know about this! My boys suffer (or rather I do) from this. Let's call it Early Onset GBB. So true.

[Gina]

Oh! DER! Nevermind me.. I am just completely off my rocker. My name is SUPPOSED to be under the comment. *blush*

[Judi]

Aha! That's IT! GBB must be the reason my husband and son could never find the car keys by closely examining the ceiling.