The Doctor and a moment of dumbness

So for the past few days I've been mentally motivating myself to do a sewing project, one that actually requires the use of a sewing machine. Several years ago, while looking for a new hobby, I took a few evening sewing classes at the local Volkshochschule. Surprisingly, I didn't completely suck at it (anything involving hand-eye coordination is generally NOT my forte) and found it fun enough to invest in a sewing machine. As I'm not a Rockefeller, however, I only invested in Aldi's best. I tried the machine out once, then got the acting call, and it's resided in its box on our bedroom floor ever since.

Three years later, bringing us up to the present, I decide to hem my cute but incredibly long Gap corduroy pants using these great internet instructions. Last night I decided it might be smart to hook up the ole machine first and have a practice run, being as I was never a Naturtalent at anything except random TV trivia.

Problem number one involved threading the bobbin. Let's just say it was pure dumb luck that finally helped me after half an hour of trying to get the Obergarn to hook up with the Untergarn. As the evening wore on, I did however have plenty of opportunity to thoroughly practice those threading skills due to problem number two.

Problem number two was, in a nutshell, the fact that the damned machine wouldn't sew. As in, everything was threaded properly, stitch length and tension were correct, and all I ended up with were knots. Let's just say that at this point I was ready to throw Aldi's best in the trash. Which I mentioned several times to the Guitar Hero. Who was by now forced (yet again) to listen to my bitching. No matter what settings I changed, nothing would sew. Yet another half an hour later, as I'm flipping through the instruction manual I stumble across the page with all of the accessories included with the machine. And realize that the Nähfuß (ha, sewing foot in English) is missing. The Nähfuß is the little doohickey that holds the material down and guides it, therefore making a line of stitches possible. A little light bulb went off in the dumb Doctor's head. Maybe this could be the problem... However, in looking through the cute little box of accessories, I couldn't find the standard Nähfuß which was supposed to come assembled to the machine. I bitched some more to the Guitar Hero, who in his brilliant and patient way found a hotline for the company that makes the machine, called them and ordered a replacement part (for 15 EUR). Sounds like a happy ending, right? The Doctor's so dumb it took her over almost two hours to realize an essential part of her sewing machine was missing, but it's replaceable and everyting works out.

No, here's where dumb Doctor meets even dumber Doctor. After the Guitar Hero calls the hotline, after the Guitar Hero orders a replacement part, after the Guitar Hero goes back to his internet world - only then do I have the bright idea to check the box the sewing machine came in to see if the Nähfuß might have fallen off - the box which, by the way, had been lying open on the floor next to my feet for the past two hours! And there it was, that little bastard of a Nähfuß, the one that caused hours of anguished cursing on my part.

To his credit, the Guitar Hero, upon receiving said news, did not make a point of kicking the dumbness out of me, which I would have been tempted to do were the roles reversed; instead, he calmly cancelled the replacement part order and put me to bed. We agreed that it might be in everyone's best interest for me to postpone my project until he's out of the house.