Second Ball Syndrome

No, not to be confused with second sock syndrome or an unfortunate predicament of the male anatomy.  It's a plight only suffered by those who are poor/space-limited/old-school enough to shun the "modern" marvel of the yarn-winder, though as a side note, at the Knit 'n Purl hand-balling is still taught as a core competency.  Yes, I know, it still sounds dirty.  Second ball syndrome, as a reminder, is the condition wherein, after a long and arduous session culminating in the production of a passable yarn ball from a very large hank of specialty yarn, one finds oneself plunged into an inexplicably complex tangle of knots in the middle of a previously smooth-sailing second hank.  Regard my tale of woe.

So, it was St. Pat's weekend, I'd just settled down on the couch with a bellyful of homemade corned beef and cabbage (a saga in itself, believe you me), a bottle of Irish red (still haven't reconciled myself to the idea of stouts), Food Network on the telly, and knees that had recovered enough from skein number 1 that I thought, eh, what the heck?  With my usual combination of good intentions and irrational optimism, I pulled skein number 2 of beautiful art-deco-blue shawl yarn out of the shopping bag, draped it over the kneecaps again, and set to work.  For every few yards of balled yarn, I rewarded myself with a swig of beer and a gander at the food porn.  Things went smoothly until about 10 o'clock, when, really, that should've been my tip-off to pack it up, but give up halfway through a yarn skein?  Nevar!

And then I looked down.

"What the--?"  (tugs and realizes mistake).

Knot ball about the size of the yarn ball I'd currently succeeded in making.

OK, don't panic, we can do this.  Whatever you do, don't think longingly about the scissors stowed away at the bottom of the knitting bag.  Fingers are already tired and a little stiff, but what're a few tight knots?  No sweat.

Slow, painstakingly slow progress, revealing about an inch of useable yarn at a time...distal to the knot.  Taking a sip of Irish red every now and again to steel the nerves.  Heck, by now it could be whiskey and I wouldn't care.  Probably better if it was, since my liver's metabolizing at a normal rate and my fingers are free only about every 30 minutes or so and I've been nursing this beer for about 3 hours now.  And are those...adhesions between the strands?  What is this, surgery?  By now the food porn's done and the SVU marathon has come and gone and the TV's halfway through playing "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," and I'm still stuck on the couch with my leg muscles spasming and my fingers going numb and all I wanna do is cut the yarn and start over if I could only find a spot where cutting it would solve all my problems.

And then it comes.  The last knot.  Blessed deliverance.  Heck, by now I'm down to the last few yards of yarn, and it's not like I can feel my legs enough to get up anyway.  I finish winding, gulp down the last of the beer, and look up at the clock.  12:30.  AM.  I've been doing this for 4-1/2 hours.  Luckily my cat doesn't care that I have the vocabulary of a sailor with the added advantage of being able to curse fluently in at least 3 languages.  I vow, this time, that never again will I succumb to the idiocy of hand-balling yarn.  Next time, I'll buy a yarn-winder.

Yeah.  Right.  I went to medical school.  Masochism is in my blood.