Girl Mode
So at Pennsic I decided I need a warping frame, because if I'm going to make Liam a really good set of Viking it's by God going to include some broken lozenge twill leg wraps, and where else am I going to find four-inch-wide, fifteen-foot-long pieces of broken lozenge twill? I've got a loom (originally my mother's and, I'm pretty sure, older than I am) and everything, all I need is a few more heddles and I'm good to go. And I thought to myself, self, I thought, how hard can this be? It's a square wooden frame with pegs sticking out and I have a woodworking-capable person in the house who can tell me if I'm about to chop my finger off or cause a collapse of the space-time continuum or something.
(The reason one needs a warping frame, by the way, is to make sure that all the strings that you set up the loom with--the warp--are a) roughly the same length and b) easy to keep in something resembling order, because the First Rule of String is, it will misbehave given any opportunity whatsoever.)
Anyway, off we go to Lowe's Depot or some such place, where they have lots of Very Tall Shelves filled with Items of Arcane Power1. And we quickly pick up some nice hardwood 1x2s to make the frame, and half-inch hardwood dowels to make the pegs, and have gotten to the point of picking out stuff (screws, glue) to hold it all together, when an employee comes up to us to ask if we need any help. And proceeds to ignore me entirely. Every remark he made, including those few answering questions I had asked him, was addressed directly to Liam.
Now I realize what I look like; I realize I am cute and busty and have hair to my waist and wear skirts and generally look as if the most pressing thing on my mind is whether I have enough of color #7442 to finish the needlepoint I'm working on. But since I was the one who knew what I was trying to make (Liam was indroduced to the concept pretty much as we were walking into the store), and since I was the one who kept trying to explain to him that, given the way a warping frame is used, we didn't really have to worry about forces pushing the sides of it apart, it would have been nice if he'd, you know, actually listened to the words emerging from my mouth. I said several times that keeping the thing from collapsing inwards was much more of a concern (which Liam didn't know, because he wasn't clear on how the thing worked), but we still avoided buying stuff to keep the frame from exploding in use mostly by putting the items back on the shelves after he'd wandered away.
I'm sure it didn't help that I was still on Valium and Vicodin at the time, so my internal censor/reality checker was not, shall we say, at peak efficiency, but it's not as if I were asking stupid questions; I checked with Liam afterwards to be sure.
This is why, when I worked at JoAnn's3, I went out of my way to be the first one to approach any male who walked into the store unaccompanied--because I'm OK at helping people out when they really don't know what they're doing, but if he did know what he was doing I didn't assume he was delusional and hover trying to "help". (My then-manager was horrible for this.)
I know stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. But is it such a stretch to take a second to check the stereotype against reality?
1: Have you ever wondered what it must be like to be the new guy in one of those places? "Hey, Bob, some couple just came in and said they wanted a hundred feet of rope rated for 1000 pounds or better, fifteen heavy-duty D-rings, and hardware capable of hanging a moving, 150-pound load. Whatcha think they're making?" "Tell ya what, Larry, if you don't know already I don't think you want to know."
Or maybe I just have a dirty mind.
2: What kind of geeky does it make me that I don't have to check DMC's website to know that that's bright, light yellow? Not that you'd do needlepoint in DMC anyway, since I don't think they make wools.
3: My best JoAnn's story: I'm standing at the cutting counter when two people come up with a cart full of gorgeous fabrics--lots of brocades from the upholstery section and whatnot. And, like you do, I asked what they were making. The man of the couple (I'm pretty sure he was, in a memorable phrase I read recently, gay as a treeful of pixies4, though this should not in any way be construed to mean that I think only gay men sew) sighed in that put-upon way and said, "Making clothes for the Pennsic War." When I smiled back and replied, "Oh, really? I'm down at the bottom of Runestone, how about you?", his expression was utterly priceless.
4: Based on mannerisms and the fact that he didn't even glance at my chest. My gaydar is heavily based on that thing that guys do when they meet a new person of the appropriate gender, where they have this half-second of, "Hmmm, would I hit that?" Gay men, of course, don't do it with me.