"Men" Who Knit

This weekend we are in Chicago, where John is attending a psychological conference and I'm tagging along. We flew through Dulles airport in Washington, D.C. On that leg of the trip, we picked up travelling companions Senator Barak Obama and also a very nattily-dressed young "man." He was wearing a pinstriped coat, tie and tie clip, snappy leather cap, and . . . knitting needles?

First of all, these needles were metal and freaking HUGE. After all that time in (92% white) Binghamton, people were already starting to look like terrorists to me, and then add to it this strangely-dressed person with huge, metal, pointed sticks? How is it that those can come on board, along with Senator Obama no less, while others can't bring their hair gel?

Alas, some of the mystery was possibly solved when we were at the baggage claim and John observed that it was not a man at all, but more likely a young woman. I think that once he saw her in action, the feminine hands were a give away.

I went through a weird emotional process at this point: I was conflicted because I couldn't figure out if I found it more disturbing that a) a woman would be dressed as a man (and fool me so easily), or that b) a man might actually be a knitter. I think this makes me a bad person for some (as yet unidentified exactly) reason, but I believe that I was more freaked out by the notion that a man was knitting. In some weird way, that violated my ideas about gender roles more than a woman dressed as a man.