Miss Celie

Sewing Kit and the WORST date proffer

I spotted this over the weekend at a local store:

sewingkitlarge
Courtesy of Dumpling Dynasty

It’s a metal sewing kit from Dumpling Dynasty. It retailed locally for $16 and $18 on the site. I almost bought it, but remembered I didn’t need it. But, how stinking cute is that?

The other amusing thing from my weekend is the WORST date proffer EVER.  I was bullied into happy hour on Friday night (I’m not big on bars). While there, started talking with a person (I’m not a holster sniffer, but he is a police officer, a detective.  What can I say, my office is catty corner to headquarters.) who I had like two dates with over a year ago. We’re chatting and I’m remembering how charming and tall he is. He asks me what my plans are for Saturday and I say I’m pretty free these days. He says, “Well, I have to work security at the parking garage from four until midnight. You should stop by and break up the monotony.”  I had no sly retort. I just finished my drink and let the awkward silence hang.  You may have guessed that I am a story teller. And let me tell you. I have told this story to anyone who will listen.  Hillarious.

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49 comments

  1. I can’t believe you weren’t drooling to take him up on his most amazing offer! 😉

  3. omg, I’ve had that sewing kit in my Google Notebook for like a year now! It’s made an appearance on every birthday and Christmas list but I’ve still never seen it in the flesh. Really, I just want it for the tin so I can show it off doing my mobile hand sewing… 😉

  5. It would really have broken up the monotony if you’d gone by the parking garage around 11 pm or so, with the Dumpling Dynasty sewing kit. You could offer to sew a button back on or something. Or sew his collar to his neck.

  6. The sewing kit is pretty nice, but it’s nothing like that $975 version featured in Vogue that you can use to “save money” on hemming your pants.

  7. How could you turn down a tempting offer like that?

    I love the sewing kit, although I have so much sewing stuff, I could probably manufacture sewing kits, if so inclined. Can I just have the cute tin?

  9. Wait a minute. What happened to the cute Kojak you sewed all those ties for? I thought he (and his sisters and his cousins and his aunts) were all over you! How did this happen? As for the turkey who wants entertainment during his monotonous shift, your non- answer was elegant and appropriate.
    I suppose you could have handed him your card and asked him to drop by, to empty your wastebasket. Or promised to stop by, when you had a car that needed parking. Or simply said, “I could certainly break up the monotony of your shift, but there’s no hope for the monotony of your personality.’

    I bet I’ll think up more, despite myself.

  10. screeeeeeeeeeeeech…. what? I missed something. what happened to the tie guy? did I miss an entry???

  13. I second the thoughts of Inkstain… Although it is none of my business, the curiosity is still there….

  14. Personally speaking, I’d steer clear of law enforcement plus any D.A.s, current or former. (Married to a former ADA.) Madame Lindsay T sees you with someone who has a strong creative vibe but is financially solvent…

    You have your own domain name! Yay!

  17. Sorry that my fears appear to be founded, and your date nights are pretty free. But what could be more romantic than hanging out at a parking garage? Maybe dental surgery?

  18. How did you hold back and not buy one, so cute.

    To think some lucky woman will end up with him one day! LOL

  19. Oh God, I don’t miss those days! I was single for around 7 years and I refer to them as my Mary Tyler Moore years. If anyone watched her show they would know what I mean. But I loved to share my stories too, and actually I still do! You just keep on sewing and having a fun single life, I bet a lot of married women envy you!

  21. Apparantly, you turned down a heck of a date with one of the Prince Charmings of the world. There are many more out there. Believe me– they don’t change as they age either. The more they’re turned down, the more egotistic they get.

  22. I am like the other ladies what happened to the cop that you made the ties for. I thought you guys were going strong. I know I did not miss an entry so you go …explaining to do Lucy

  23. I think I must be listening to too many Sherlock Holmes adventures on librivox, am I really the only one who suspects some latent propagandism in the sewing kit lid’s illustration? Maybe it’s just that it’s a little too sucrose-heavy even for my sweet tooth.

    The date proffer is CLASSIC. Should you ever run into him again you ought to thank him for giving you such a great anecdote, which will retain it’s full flavour throughout the rest of your life!

    Since I’m new to your blog, I’m going to have to go searching around in it now for this ‘tie-guy’.

  24. Charming, tall and . . . CLUELESS! You’ll get more fun out of telling that story than you ever would have out of a “monotony-relieving” date in a parking garage.

    What would one wear for a date like that? Do you even have that in your wardrobe?

  25. I tell you, I just don’t know what is wrong with men these days. They have apparently lost the ability to properly ask a woman out on a date. Is this evolution in reverse? That has got to be one of the worst date offers I’ve heard in a while.

    Lately, there is a guy who I have “met” on Facebook. He emails me, he texts me, he IMs me. But he has yet to ask to actually meet me. Am I really supposed to bother to respond to someone I don’t know, have never met, and hasn’t even asked me to meet him for coffee? I wonder if guys are just getting lazier or dumber. . .

  29. A date in a parking lot…the only time I’ve seen one, it was in West Side Story, and involved two large and rather aggressive groups of people, many of them yelling things like, Chico! Watch Out! He’s got a knife!
    But wait, the first “date” I had with my lovely husband was when he invited me to his apartment for his birthday party. (single, 48, and not gay and never married.) I went, with a bottle of champagne. Turns out he never touches the stuff. When I got there, there were no other guests invited. A beloved relative had died an hour before I was due to show, and I spent our first evening together trying in vain to get a telephone number out of the night shift of Detroit directory information from Hong Kong so I could send flowers. In the end I only reached a relative of the deceased across town, and was the unlucky party to inform him of the death. Emotionally exhausted, I ate a bowl of spaghetti, listened to the Stones and spent the night in date’s guest room in borrowed pajamas, “It Happened One Night” style.
    Nothing happened that night. But we’ve been married twenty years.

    Cidell, it ain’t over til it’s over. My widowed mother confided to me once after I broke up a six year fiasco at 36 that she only met her true love at 59.
    HUH?

    • Maybe you’re right, but you may not be aware that African American/black women have the lowest rate of marriage in the United States of any group (It was over 40%.) and I read in the Washington Post that something like 75% of black professional women in the U.S. are unmarried.

      Sorry to be such a downer, but as an older, single black woman, at least some of the treatment and limited choices I’ve had have been related to my race and the way black women are regarded in this culture.

      I sincerely hope Cidell beats the odds (Don’t be superstitious, Cidell, I’m no fortune teller.), but if she didn’t it would be because of a phenomenon much bigger than she is.

      If people genuinely want society to improve they have to acknowledge that.

  31. I couldn’t spend on the sewing kit. I’d be thinking of patterns, interfacing, buttons, etc. About the guy, I think you handled it perfectly. Who knows whats in the tea leaves, and you seem pretty busy right now. I love your class posts, by the way. Just keep praying for your future no matter what it is. I would wonder if guys like that just roam the streets at night never knowing why.

  34. When I saw you were about to discuss your personal life I shuddered, but by the end of the story I realized that the guy deserved to be shamed (Not that he’s likely to reading this blog,).

    In fact, it was a public service. How many times have I been on the receiving end of bad behavior and deeply internalized it as a comment on me instead of the guy?

    Good for you.

  35. As for the Dumpling Dynasty products, I have to admit that I’m not loving that this retro-*inspired* website designed by a British woman has product packaging illustrating the usual gender stereotypes: The First Aid kit features a boy as a doctor and a girl as a nurse; the Explorer kit has a boy on the cover, the baking kit a girl, etc.

    At least the Sewing Kit has girl and a boy.

  36. Spit out my drink at your Happy Hour story. I’m telling ya, if you want to collaborate on a book, I can provide some fun material. LOL.

  38. Oh, that was painfully funny. A would-be suitor once wooed my with the line, “You look like a really good cook.” Great.

  39. Wow. I once was invited to “come check out my garage sometime” by a guy who was at least 20 years older than me (he owned a mechanic shop) because I was squinting into the sun when he walked by and he thought I was flirting with him. I felt icky for days.

  40. Oh, my. Well, I’m glad you recognised that THAT wasn’t the best offer out there! Yeesh.

    :/

  42. Oh no he didn’t. Tall and charming won’t buy his way out of that grand showing of social ineptitude. Sheesh.

  43. Hi Cidell,

    I’m trying to track down some info you had in one of your entries about wooden dressmaking tools from Turkey. I think you were referencing an entry that someone else had in their blog. I can’t find it! If you can point me in the right direction, I’d really appreciate it. thanks!

  44. Maybe because I am a police officer this offer doesn’t strike me as all that odd. Your audience seems to have a higher regard for the manners of law enforcement than the reality with regards to relationships. I’m not telling you all cops are dogs but much like the images on that sewing kit, reality is much different than advertising.

  45. Oh jeez, what a bonehead!! Hanging out in a garage is something you do later on in the relationship, not in the “getting to know you” stage!

    On the other hand, sometimes the clueless ones have potential if they are willing to be trained. Like DF, ex-engineer and current RN. Fortunately he knows he’s clueless and is willing to take direction.

    The sewing kit is darling but not for that price. Bet you can find something similar in Asia if you get there on your world travels.

  46. Wow, I would have loved to have been there for the awkward silence! And how surprising that no one’s snapped him up yet! With an offer like that I’d rather stay home and wax my bikini line.

    I don’t know about you but I’m just not up for training yet another man. Which is why I like my current beau who was actually paying attention during his last relationship.

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