Some Assembly Required...

...as far as I'm concerned those three words are the devil's work. Who's invention was that, anyway? Today, I saw some plastic magnetic letters at the store and bought them for my preschooler. The evil phrase wasn't actually on the box, but you could see through the little cellophane window that the letters were attached to each other by a series of plastic bars. My daughter amused herself for a time gingerly twisting to free each letter from its prison. Exhausted by her chore, she actually voluntarily went to take her nap - a rare occurrence in our home.

So, that left me to untangle the alphabet, when what do I see peeking out of the box at me? A small bag filled with miniscule magnets. That's right, they spared every dime they could in the manufacture of this fine toy. After all, this was not "Made in China" but here in the mountains of France. Maybe the assembly workers were on strike that day!? So, I'm diligently jamming these tiny magnets into even tinier slots when I see on the box that there are "50" letters, numbers and various signs and punctuation marks. Some are cursive, others are print, and being the bright cookie I am, it doesn't take me long to put two and two together to see that something must be missing. After all, the last time I checked there were still 26 letters in the alphabet (even the French one), so there can't possibly be two whole alphabets, plus some numbers and signs. But, thinking my 3-year-old won't notice or care, I continue my task. I reach the end of my magnets and there are still 5 letters left. Well, that can't be right, can it? I've counted those letters & co. graced with a magnet, and thus able to fulfill their destiny, and, in fact, there are 52. So, here's the situation as I see it. We have people who don't know the alphabet and can't count selling us letters and numbers for our children. I say, buy toys from China, and let the French stick to what they know best: food and wine.

There is, however, some good news. While standing in the check-out line, I spotted a rag mag with a picture of Angelina Jolie unnaturally thrusting her bust forward to greet readers. Does the poor woman actually know what the photographer did to her? Anyway, below it was the caption: "Angelina Jolie moves to Paris with her son." So, now I'm all excited about the prospect of a new friend - does she knit? Seriously, is there some reason why we should all know this? Do we think we'll be seeing her about town with her poodle?

All of this news was just my way of telling you that if you don't see any chatter about knitting around here for a few days, it's only because I'm either busying getting chummy with Ange, or my fingers are still too sore after my letter-assembly project.