Wherein I give my doctor knitting lessons

I nearly died today in the doctor's office. I was sitting there waiting for my appt., knitting away on my latest project, which I will avoid talking about as it is an experiment. Anyway, suffice it to say that it involves socks, circular needles and cable needles.

At this point, I will have to admit that I always put the cable needle in my mouth when I'm using it repetitively. That way, it's easily accessible and I know where it is. One unfortunate side-effect of this is that I occasionally forget it's there and will wander around with said cable needle still in my mouth even when I'm not actually knitting. I do recognize that I will have to change this habit should I ever actually make it out of the apartment with the cable needle still in my mouth. That could prove slightly embarrassing and potentially dangerous - at least if you know my track record. See bit about me being at doctor's office.

Anyway, me with cable needle in mouth, doctor walks in to get the next patient and spies cable needle. Drops everything to ask me what it is. I gave a quick explanation and she moved on. The other patient had to have some sort of test or something where the docs presence wasn't needed, so she marches back into the waiting room, sits down and asks me to show here what I use it for. At this point, the receptionist hears the word cable needle and runs in to see what it is as she has never seen one and does a lot of cabling. She always used a dpn which always falls out. She will be buying cable needles in the near future. So, back to doctor, I explain how and why a cable needle gets used and demonstrate. Then she starts asking why I'm using circulars and why there are "four" needles, so I explain this as well. The assistant again chimes in that she uses circulars for sweaters (me nodding in total agreement) but has never seen socks knit on circulars and how do you do this. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to explain all of this, but I foresee further questions the next time I go.

Who'd have thunk an American who has been knitting for 1.5 years would be teaching Swiss people (one of whom has knit for years) how to knit socks on circular needles and what cable needles are. Tee Hee! That was fun!