Giving the Law a Wink

          Having finally finished knitting a very complicated sweater,

I was ready to begin an easier project with some gorgeous, hand-dyed, lavender yarn. For it I needed 32-inch size-8 needles, so I went to the knitting store and bought some.

          Then I made a swatch, a little square of knitting that determines if you need larger or smaller needles to make the pattern fit. If you have the number of stitches the  pattern calls for within that square, you're fine. If you have fewer, you need larger needles; if more, then you need smaller needles. It turned out that I needed larger needles.

         No problem, I thought. I had the receipt, so I would just exchange the needles I bought for the needles I needed.

          Not so easy.

          "I don't accept returns on needles," the owner told me.

          But I had never even opened the package! Why couldn't I just leave this package here and take the right one?

          Because, she said, it was a health code matter.

          Health code?! For knitting needles? The absurdity floored me. Do they think we lick the ends of knitting needles or that the cats might chew on them? Might we have cleaned out our ear wax with them? We return clothes we changed our minds about, fixtures that didn't fit, tools we don't want, after all. We return what we bought at a store and what we bought online. And I couldn't return knitting needles that were not the ones I needed?

          No, I couldn't.

          My irritation was showing, and I began to feel like a difficult customer, so I tried to make up for that by complimenting the owner on her scarf. She unwound it from her neck to show to me and told me where to find the free pattern. We chatted for a few minutes; then I left the store with both pairs of knitting needles.

          But I was still seething. Trump cheats, lies, breaks laws. He endangers the whole country, and Congress just winks an eye. Although there's nothing unreasonable, dangerous, or unhealthy about making an exception to the rule about knitting needles, it couldn't be done for me. Something seems out of whack.

          One Christmas season, years ago, when I had been living on the mountain for many years already and was known by the folks at the Applegate Store, which, in those years, had a post office, I received a notice in my mailbox that I had a package at the store. The day before Christmas I stopped there to pick it up. When I gave the man behind the counter the package slip, he said, "Sorry. The post office is closed now."

          Well, yes, but he knew who I was, and the package was obviously a Christmas present for me and my child; couldn't he, in the Christmas spirit, just go into the back room and get it for me?

          No, he couldn't. Rules are rules.

          Did he think Uncle Sam was standing behind me? Did he think I—or anyone—was going to report him to the police? Was there anything wrong with giving a poor woman with a child the Christmas present waiting for her in the next room?

          I believe in obeying rules. Most are made for good reasons. But maybe sometimes a rule just simply isn't applicable in a particular case. Is there anything wrong, then, in giving it a wink and acting human to human?