Breaking up is hard to do

I tried doing something today. Something which I have only done once before.

I tried to return yarn.

The yarn and I spent a few moments together, before I placed it in my backpack.

I lovingly said goodbye after carefully and logically explaining that I had bought it on impulse, and I really didn't have a use for it. I said that it wasn't because I didn't love it. I said that it needed to go back to the store, where it could be purchased by someone who loved it even more than me, someone who would use it immediately. I told it that it was worth more than to just go into the china cabinet and sit for an unknown period of time. I even offered to let it talk to the other yarn, so that it would know that I wasn't making this up.

After a bit, I got a little impatient, telling it that someone had to be mature and responsible, and that someone was me. I explained that I had seriously overspent my fun budget recently, and that I had just made a large tuition payment, and therefore this wasn't personal.

I caught the bus, and then missed my connecting bus, so I walked for half an hour in the snow, thinking about how sad this was, how I wished I had planned more carefully. How much I regretted having to sever this promising relationship so quickly.

I got to the store, and found the yarn that I should have purchased instead (I didn't tell the yarn in my backpack that it wasn't my first choice). Serendipitously, the new yarn matched the same dye lot that I already had. I should have been more careful, a week ago.

I gather my basket, and head to the desk. I find my receipt, giddy with joy (but trying to hold it in, and be sensitive to the yarn in my backpack) that things will work out and Mini B will get what her mother really wants for Christmas, and my wallet will not take another hit as a result.

It turns out, the yarn in my backpack was just going on a field trip. It was purchased on sale, and can't be returned.

Sigh. There's room in the house for all the yarn.

P.S. I was allowed to exchange four balls, so that I have enough of one dye-lot to do something for me. As if I need another unfinished pink sweater...

P.P.S. Please don't tell the yarn that I am secretly relieved it came home with me. And we certainly won't tell it that I'm also having an affair with the new Kaffe Fassett sock yarn.