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Eric: It is a slow way to die. Pain would be preferable. All is grey. All is quiet. Help me.
(From Achewood. Click on the thumbnail for full sized legalized euthanasia I can fully get behind.)
I have been to the bead store.
I'm usually a good boyfriend to go shopping with. I enjoy walking with a girlfriend through clothes stores, and giving opinions. I enjoy time with a significant other. I enjoy watching said significant other put on jeans and pose in them. I enjoy poking around WalMart and figuring out table purchasing decisions.
But I cannot. Abide. Fabric stores.
I have an ex-girlfriend -- one I'm still good friends with, and who may be reading this -- who sews. She buys fabric less by the yard than by the hectare. She owns a serger, which is like a sewing machine if sewing machines were designed by the Department of Defense and could fight crime. She made me the best pair of shorts I ever owned.
But she would spend time in the fabric store.
A lot of time. In the fabric store.
Oh, my dear God.
It's got the same level of silent oppression as a library, only there's nothing to read. I know because I desperately read anything I could find, trying to keep my brain operational. I would read the descriptions of patterns. I would read the bits of pattern still out on tables. I would run my hands through bins of buttons trying to be impressed. With, you know, the buttons. Because they were shiny.
It didn't work. My mind closed in on itself. It was like it was choked off from all air, and oxygen deprivation had set in. I'm pretty sure any pre-calculus I had in my head died a slow and horrible death in JoAnn's Fabrics in Ithaca, New York.
This was a regular occurrence, to the point where years later I have a pathological fear of fabric stores. I actually would kind of like to get a couple yards of outing flannel, because that's what Linus's security blanket was. (I learned that in my Fantagraphics Peanuts collection, year two.) Yes. I'm enough of a comics dork that I'd like to get a blue Linus security blanket. I'm not ashamed.
But to do that, I'd have to go in the fabric store. And if I went by myself, my brain would seize up and die and there would be no one to gently lead me back out of the fabric store. I would be there for hours, my eyes glazed over and my mouth slightly open, while poetry and science withered and died in my mind. When I finally would be pushed out the door at closing time I would clutch my new security blanket in fear, because I would not know what car was mine or how to drive it if I found it. I would not know the names of my friends to call them for help. I would lie on the ground right there, and stare into the sky, my outing flannel in hand, and I would try to remember the term we use to describe those points of light in the sky. And eventually the police would find me and they would send me to a place where they would take care of me, and I would get a job that I could do with my hands.
Chris Onstad understands this. The bead shop and the fabric shop are the same place, I'm almost certain. He too has lost brain cells. Roast Beef has lost brain cells.
In the end, I fear I am still inside the fabric store. It is 1992, and the World Wide Web is just something I've heard of coming out of UIUC, and I have created this entire digital world in a desperate attempt to keep my mind occupied. I think I'm writing Websnark, in an office in New Hampshire, where the world is beautiful and spring has come. But really it is winter, it is 1992, and I stand in the fabric store, and the fabric store is consuming me. I will never leave the fabric store. And someday, someone will have the decency to kill me where I stand, drooling, while my girlfriend considers the best flannel to line a new pair of homemade jeans with.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at April 11, 2005 1:22 PM
Comments
Comment from: jpcardier posted at April 11, 2005 1:47 PM
"It is a slow way to die. Pain would be preferable. All is grey. All is quiet. Help me."
I hate, and my hate is grey.
I am sooooo pathetic that I got the JLA Giffen/De Matthias Gray Man reference.
And I too am at the fabric store. And my hate is grey.
But not when I consider the amount of money spent on gear for hobbies not being actively pursued. Then my hate burns white, before collapsing back to grey. Grey is my heart, and grey is my hate.
Comment from: Dave Van Domelen posted at April 11, 2005 1:49 PM
JoAnn Fabrics isn't bad, as fabric stores go, because it has other craft stuff in it. Especially the newer Wal-Mart-sized JoAnn superstores. I can generally keep myself entertained in a JoAnn Fabrics for half an hour if need be, without hitting any fabric stuff.
Bead stores, however, tend to be just beads and maybe incense. Deadly dull unless you're into beads.
Comment from: cartoonlad posted at April 11, 2005 2:13 PM
Wallace Shawn reference. Wow. I should be reading this strip.
Comment from: shadowbourne posted at April 11, 2005 2:16 PM
Why would you line a pair of jeans with flannel? I thought you wore a flannel above the jeans. I'm from Maine, we considered Al from Home Improvement to have a Quality Fashion Sense.
Comment from: Eric Burns posted at April 11, 2005 2:18 PM
Flannel lined jeans=Hella Warm in the winter.
Comment from: Kneefers posted at April 11, 2005 2:23 PM
Heh. That's one of the funniest things I've read in a long time. Basically because it's so TRUE. Fabric stores DO make your brain seize up...
:D
Comment from: Chris Anthony posted at April 11, 2005 2:35 PM
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Fabrics, huh?
Eric, if anyone says "Burns has lost his touch", you point them at this article. Seriously.
Comment from: 32_footsteps posted at April 11, 2005 2:38 PM
Now, I'd be really impressed if Achewood follows up tomorrow with the female analog to this comic.
In my marriage, it's slightly different. I get this way in used CD stores. My wife can disappear into one for hours, emerging only when she needs food (which they thankfully don't serve inside; I'd never see her otherwise). And when she does come out, she's got an armful of a couple score compact discs, which she somehow got for under $100.
I, on the other hand, couldn't stand to be there too long. I look for a few rare CDs by my favorites, but then need to get out. I can tolerate it for about 15 minutes, but then I feel the vinyl oppressing my very soul.
To be fair, though, I could pitch a tent in Electronics Boutique or Gamestop happily, and my wife will only go in to fetch me. (On the off chance she wants to pay for a game herself, she uses ye olde Internet.) So it runs both ways.
Of course, our solution is to have periodic shopping trips alone, to prevent boring each other out of their skulls. Not everyone can do that, though.
My recommendation for when you have to go into these stores (I go into bead stores myself, to get items for minor jewelry repair) - do a military drop. Know your objective beforehand, streak in, obtain what you need, and streak out. Failing that, find someone immune to the store's brain-bending affects and have them get the item for you.
Comment from: Milligan posted at April 11, 2005 3:16 PM
Ready?
The next time you find yourself in a fabric store, ask the lady behind the counter if you can get felt in there.
Ask in a loud voice. Even if she is helping another customer.
Keep asking in different ways:
"I heard you can get felt in here!"
"Can you tell me where I go to get felt?"
"What's a guy gotta do to get felt around here?"
etc.
Hilarity ensues.
I've yet to find the bead store equivalent.
Comment from: Darth Paradox posted at April 11, 2005 3:54 PM
That last paragraph scared the shit out of me. Largely because once I read Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder and came out of it distrusting my own existence. It seems to be unusually easy for me to being distrusting reality.
Comment from: larksilver posted at April 11, 2005 4:37 PM
Oh. my.
See, I must admit, in my youth, I was guilty of dragging the mate to the craft store (although never the Bead store, at which he drew the line). In my defense, I always felt it balanced out the ridiculous amount of time we spent doing boring (to me) stuff HE liked, like going to clubs to hear bad bands destined to disappear even further into obscurity, but that's beside the point, isn't it?
I have since discovered that even the Best Boyfriend is not cut out for this. It's just too much to ask. They just Do Not Get It. Ever.
Fabric shopping I prefer to do alone. If I want to spend massive quantities of time in the fabric shop looking for just the right material for a project, it's just distracting for me to have someone.. anyone.. over there in the corner either suffering in silence or openly bitching.
My sisters are kind of crafty, and even they get on my nerves when we go to the craft store together. They come in for one thing, whereas I want to look at EVERYTHING. The section of completed shit for sale invariably encourages me even on the days when I'm feeling dreadfully insecure (hey, if people will buy THAT for $10.00, it's a sure thing my current project will sell. As I wander through the store, I see connections I hadn't imagined which inspire new directions, new projects (ooh! I wonder if that piece with all the elephants would look cooler if I did sort of a quilty-papery thing instead of paint?), etc.
Would I want someone else to come with me and distract me from that? NO. No more than I want someone with me when I go to an art museum to just soak it in.
Of course, it's different if I just need freakin' DMC Number 554 and that's all I want. If that's the case, by golly, I'll drag a fella in with me (or ask him to hang out in the toy store next door) while I run in and get it.
The kicker to THAT, of course, is that I must not get distracted by the - oooh, shiny buttons!...
Comment from: Alexander Danner posted at April 11, 2005 5:26 PM
To be honest, I can deal with the fabric shop, so long as it's not a long trip -- 15 minutes is about my limit. My wife often needs help matching colors, so at least I can give opinions on stuff.
The bead store, however...oh my lord. I've only been once, and that was the end of my tolerance. And I was only there maybe ten minutes, before I begged out to go next door and buy coffee as slowly as I could manage. Thank god, my wife doesn't actually do beadwork -- she was just getting beads as a gift for her sister.
As to the men's equivilent -- my wife enjoys comics shops and video game stores as much as I do, so we don't really run into that problem much. The one exception, oddly enough -- the grocery store. I love to cook, so I love looking at every item in the store and thinking about what I could do with it. Whereas Brandy would happily live on frozen food and pasta for the rest of her life if she didn't have me in the house.
Comment from: quiller posted at April 11, 2005 6:19 PM
I understand the general premise, there are plenty of times I've been in stores where it was just killing time for someone else, and it is always excruciating.
Most of the time in fabric stores it has been a pretty specific objective which I've been involved in, so it hasn't been that difficult. The last time I recall fabric shopping we were looking for costume materials in downtown LA's fabric district, and there were lots of interesting tidbits here or there. Plus there were 5 of us, so anyone who wasn't interested at the time could chat with the rest.
Comment from: kirabug posted at April 11, 2005 6:27 PM
Gentlemen, fellow geeks, please learn from my husband.
Find a small technological device that allows you to play games. A Palm, a phone, a TI-83+ if you have to. Load it with games. Do not leave the house to shop anywhere without it. (The phone works nicely for this.)
At the bead store (fabric store, obsession of your lady's choice), you play Bejeweled, Tetris, Hangman, whatever, while the lady shops. If it's a suitably talented device (Palm), you can write on it when not playing games, but Solitaire on the phone will work in a pinch.
Ladies, this goes for us too. Load with games, play games while they debate the relative merits of the cork dart board versus the plastic one with the noisemakers. (And then go cork, trust me.)
I haven't been in the "bead shop" in years :)
Comment from: siwangmu posted at April 11, 2005 7:23 PM
I'm going to take someone's joke from the "Saving Snarky" post at face value and comment to Pavlov--er, show my support for essays with little pictures in the corners and humorous links! (Sorry, I just love "Click for full-sized ____"). Also, your line about the serger was the awesome, as I just learned what one was in my Costume Techniques class this semester. They're fun!
And sooner or later (this comic, which was funny, being an exception), I'm going to "get" Achewood (made an attempt through the archives that will hopefully be finished someday, never feel right starting mid-comic--like Wednesday I guess?). My loss, it seems. Maybe at some point it'll click.
Comment from: Rachi posted at April 11, 2005 10:03 PM
I love going to both bead stores and fabric stores. I sew a lot. However... I do have a hatred for all JoAnn's. Such hatred. Such burning hatred... the JoAnn's here sucks. It sucks hard. It's... like, they don't have wool. Wool. No wool. None. And I live in the Pacific Northwest.
But I do know what you mean... Even I hate the fabric store if I stay with my mother too long. Or the clothing store. Bad, bad clothing store.
Comment from: EsotericWombat posted at April 11, 2005 10:32 PM
"It is not genetically possible for men to have opinions about fabric"
Anyone who gets that quote is certifiably awesome
Comment from: tynic posted at April 11, 2005 10:36 PM
"It is not genetically possible for men to have opinions about fabric"
Anyone who gets that quote is certifiably awesome
Woot!
"... and, of course - DARLEKS!"
Comment from: tynic posted at April 11, 2005 11:00 PM
... massive typo. How embarrassing. I can spell daleks, really.
Comment from: miyaa posted at April 11, 2005 11:35 PM
Does this mean Fabric and Bead Stores are bad places to pick up chicks?
Comment from: Shadowydreamer posted at April 11, 2005 11:53 PM
I'm probably about to have my female gender membership card yanked.. but.. there's such a thing as bead stores? O_o;
I'm a "male" shopper. I know what I want, I go in, I buy it, I leave. I do not enjoy "browsing." I do not enjoy trying on endless things in bad lighting none of which seem to be made with someone with my figure or taste in clothing. I do not enjoy looking at things I can't afford to buy. (This seems to be a great hobby for some of my female friends. I don't get it.)
I DO go to fabric stores.. but I can't say I've ever spent more than 20 minutes in one, I know what I want when I go in and if I don't find it I leave.. and I'm not sure why one would drag a boyfriend with you. I can't speak for all boyfriends, of course, but mine have always been the "Sniff. Sniff. It's clean!" type, rather than the "Ooo, this dark denim goes rather well with the blue check flannel!" type.
Comment from: the_iron_troll posted at April 12, 2005 1:32 AM
Wow, I might have lost brain cells simply imagining that slow, dark death of the soul. I have acquired some greater tolerance over the years, perhaps because I've grown wiser and now carry books on such expeditions.
"What's that, Mom? You want to look at clothes for 2 hours? I'll be on that bench over there, reading. Bu-bye."
Comment from: gwalla posted at April 12, 2005 2:38 AM
Oh my god.
That final paragraph took an amusing rant about oppressively boring places and catapulted it into the land of Phil K. Dick. Only, you know, with a fabric store instead of the late Roman empire.
Hats off to you, Mr. Burns.
Comment from: Wednesday posted at April 12, 2005 10:13 AM
"It is not genetically possible for men to have opinions about fabric"
What next? Cushions?
Comment from: Tom posted at April 12, 2005 12:19 PM
Anyone see the episode of COupling (The original British version, I don't think it's on the American remake) when Steve gets taken to a furniture store by his girlfriend and rants for 3 minutes about the total pointlessness of cushions.
BBC comedy at its best...
Comment from: Wednesday posted at April 12, 2005 1:07 PM
Well, yes.
They only made it through, like, two or three episodes of US Coupling (I think there were more in the can, though), so no way they would have gotten as far as cushions. Thank the good sweet Lord almighty, too, because what the *fuck* did they do to Jane?
Comment from: hess42 posted at April 12, 2005 9:30 PM
Brother, I feel your pain. The bead shop is the fabric store is the SCRAPBOOKING store. I want to gnaw off my own arm in an effort to escape that place. Mind you, I suspect my girlfriend feels much the same way about the gaming store I occasionally frequent, though I do my best to make such trips on my own and not subject her to such things.
Comment from: Coff posted at April 12, 2005 10:05 PM
Ah, the beadstore.
When i was a boy, my mother got into beading. We were in Ottawa, where my grandmother still lives, and where we went fairly frequently in those days. I forget how old I was. Young enough that I was with my mother in ottawa, and I hadn't struck out on my own anyhow. I remmember long, long waits while mom went though little boxes of beads. Didn't she know that there were other shops? This was the Glebe! There were stores that sold books, and toys, within easy reach. But she WOULD insist on buying beads. For the kid I was then, very frustrating. Since then I never, ever leave the house without a book.
It still happens to me, of course. I have dated girls who drag me places I don't feel like going. And indeed, sometimes, on the rare occasions I am in someplace like Ottawa at the same time as my mother, I will find myself in the Sassy Bead Company. I don't *have* to go places with my mother, of course. but often, if we are both in Ottawa, she will offer to drive me to the Glebe, one of my favorite neighbourhoods. "Okay" She'll tell me "We'll meet here in 2 hours", and I'll go on my own to stores I like. Two hours later, loaded down with books, art supplies, used clothes and music, I'll meet her. "Before we leave, I want to go to the beadstore". It's then that I am happy that I'm a reader, as I pull out whichever purchase I couldn't wait to crack open, and wait outside.
Comment from: brentmainxp posted at July 23, 2005 2:56 AM
I work at a Jo-Ann superstore in Coon-Rapids Minnesota. The place is the worst place to work for about 50,000 reasons. NEVER buy anything from Jo-Ann stores, I work in receiving and everything is obviously from China, and is CRAP. Most of the stuff that is breakable is broken in the back.. i bet only 75% goes on the floor, the rest is broken in the backroom. Another reason it SUCKS is because they give you very horrible hours like wednesday i work 6pm-11:59pm just so they dont have to give me the second break. I'm also scheduled every morning 6am-noon.. even tho i'm only going to be working 1 of these days because they're not sure when the truck is acctually coming in. I hate you too jo-anns. AIM SN: BrentMainXP.. I kept a journal of all the shit that goes on in that place. If you wanna read it message me on aim.
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