Why did Great Aunt Margaret knit an ugly sweater?
Do you have an ugly sweater? Where did you get it? Did a knitter knit it for you?
"A zucchini--weird?" photo by ldyck
Great Aunt Margaret's Knitting
Andrew was playing a first-person shooter computer game in his bedroom before the knock on his door. After the knock, he permitted his mother to enter and swivelled in his chair to face her.
She was carrying a sweater. And oh what a sweater she was carrying. The arms were too long. The body is too short. The neck is too wide. The stripes were knit in eye-popping, headache-inducing colour combinations. "I found this in the charity box. Don't you want it?"
“That? Hmm. Really, you have to ask?”
"Do you remember who knit it for you?"
"Great Aunt Margaret," they said together.
Great Aunt Margaret was legendary. She’d never married and didn’t have children. Retirement had granted her wings to fly around solving what she viewed as her family problems.
Great Aunt Margaret had appeared on their doorstep mere weeks after Andrew’s dad had left them.
“I didn’t exactly welcome her in our lives,” Andrew said. “I didn’t think it was any of her business, but she thought it was. She bulldozed her way in. Before I knew it she had me dusting walls, beating rugs. She had me doing all that while she... While she knit that sweater. And you... You made me wear it.”
“You
looked so cute in it.”
“Sure...”
“It made her so happy to see you wearing it.”
"Yeah,
I know. Too
happy. I
think she knit that thing on purpose. I think it was all part of her
master plan,"
Andrew said
with a twinkle in his eye.
They
burst out laughing.
Only Great Aunt Margaret knew that they were all in on the joke. And she’d taken that knowledge to her grave.
I wrote this short story. Then I read The Spoon Stealer. Then I revised the story, and it became this... I think Great Aunt Margaret's Knitting is a much better story. What do you think?
Happy Anniversary! On October 10, 2010, I created this blog. From those humble beginnings, good things grew--with your help. Thank you for reading and sharing my writing. I can't continue blogging without you.
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