Saturday, November 18, 2006

Road trips and pocket change

Today several knitbloggers met at KnitWits in Westerly, RI, for a few fun hours of knitting, chatting, and yarn browsing. The group included Debby, Kristen, Lorraine, Rachel, and Sarah, and me, plus store owner Sarah C (when time permitted).

Bloggers and staff at KnitWits

I liked the store's yarn stock; they had several lines and kits that I don't remember seeing elsewhere, as well as a nice selection of needles and other accessories. I picked up a big ball of sock yarn and the holiday issue of Interweave Knits.

I had packed an extra pair of camera batteries in my purse, but forgot about them until the return trip. Rachel (who drove) and I were about 20 minutes out of Westerly when I thought, "Hm, something in my purse seems awfully warm." I quickly opened the outer pocket of my purse, rummaged about, and discovered that one of the batteries was far hotter than it had any right to be. Rachel and I looked at each other horrified, as images of headlines like "DEATH BY AA BATTERY...TWO WOMEN DOOMED TO BLOGGING FROM THE AFTERLIFE" flashed through our minds. We finally dropped the battery into a bag and tucked it under a coat on the back seat for the rest of the trip. Fortunately, by the time we reached Providence it was back to normal.

Several coins in the same pocket were also very warm, and we think that contact between the battery and coins had created a closed circuit, right there in my purse. Under other circumstances (in a lab, for example, rather than in a car on a highway) it would have been fascinating. I'm just glad nothing really bad happened.

5 comments:

Theresa said...

Looks like fun - wish I could have joined you guys!

Theresa said...

PS Why is Rachel always front and center in these photos?

Anonymous said...

It was great meeting you in person yesterday! Lucky you caught the battery before something nasty happened. (I noticed the same thing as Theresa about Rachel and photos; at least she's not doing her Jesus impersonation this time!)

Anonymous said...

It was so nice to meet you in person -- I'm so sorry we didn't have more time to talk!! Hopefully we can all meet again after the holidays. That store had some wonderful yarns from what I saw quickly (maybe it's a good thing I didn't have time to look carefully -- the cat got the yarn, dining out, and other budgets this month, LOL).

I hope your sock went well, but most importantly, I'm glad that you and Rachel survived the conduct-electricity-secretly-while-driving-back-from-the-knitting-meeting experiment!!!

Anonymous said...

First of all, that is a heinous picture of me, so I don't know why your commenters insist on adding insult to injury by brining up my Jesus complex.

Second, thank you for accompanying me to the KnitBlogCon! It was really fun to go together in spite of your reckless endangerment of our lives.