My wife has knitted Ollie the Pug a new dog sweater. It has a shawl collar and little leather buttons. The sweater matches one I already own.
“Look,” said my wife some weeks back, when she was choosing the sweater pattern. “This doggie sweater looks just like yours. You and Ollie will be twins. Isn’t that cute?”
I’m no fan of matching outfits. You know those middle-age couples who wear the same ski jackets — same colour, same style? I think, on some level, they’ve given up on life. Same for people who wear ponchos.
“Don’t make his sweater the same as my sweater,” I said. “I don’t want to be walking down the street in the same outfit as my dog.”
“I think it’s absolutely adorable,” said my wife.
“Why don’t you knit an entirely different kind of sweater for Ollie? Like the pig sweater?”
Ollie already has a sweater with a pig’s face embroidered on the back. There’s a hole on the back where the pig’s mouth is. It’s where the leash attaches to his collar. The mouth is red, as though the pig is wearing lipstick. Ollie cuts a singular figure in it.
“Oh, that old pig sweater. That’s just for fun. This will be a more dignified garment,” my wife said.
She loves knitting. My wife worked diligently each day on the dog sweater. At times, she’d hold it up and say to Ollie: “Don’t you just love your dog sweater?”
Ollie would stare uncomprehendingly, his tongue lolling out crazily.
Soon, the dog sweater was finished.
With my help, my wife inserted Ollie into it. Because our dog is chubby, it was like stuffing sausage meat into a casing. Nonetheless, he looked rather dapper.
There was, however, one odd thing about this dog sweater. The two arms stuck out straight at the sides, like airplane wings. I thought it gave Ollie a raffish air, as though he about to become airborne at any second. But my wife seemed disappointed in the effect.
“It’s like the Norwegian sweater all over again,” she said sadly.
She was referring to the unfortunate Norwegian sweater incident of 1983. Back then, when the pop charts were burning up with Toto’s Africa and Toni Basil’s Mickey, my wife decided to knit me a ski sweater. It was a lovely turquoise-marine colour, a beautifully knitted garment.
When I put it on, a design defect quickly became apparent. The neck part of the sweater was triangle-shaped, like a volcano. When I put it on, it looked as if the sweater had erupted, with my head being the lava part.
“Wow,” I said. “I look like a volcano in this sweater. What’s with the weird neck?”
Then I noticed my wife was downcast.
“I mean, wow, this is some great sweater. I love it.”
“There’s something wrong with the neck,” she said quietly.
“The neck? Oh no. I misspoke. It’s an excellent fit. Nice and roomy in the neck department.”
Alas, my careless comment had spoiled the moment. It’s like when you buy a new car, then someone points out a scratch on the door. You didn’t notice the scratch before. Now, thanks to your stupid friend, you see it every single time.
My experiences with homemade sweaters are incredibly mixed. My mother once knitted me a green one. It was super tight. And the arms were about a foot too long. Wearing it, I looked like a green spider. I wondered: Is this how my mother views me?
When I was 12 years old, my mother knitted me a vest. It was cream-coloured with wooden buttons. She instructed me to wear it to the new school I was attending. This was Quesnel School in downtown Nanaimo.
There were daily fights in the schoolyard, which was gravel and enclosed by chain-link fence. Once, one of my Grade 7 classmates returned to class with stitches crisscrossing his face. He had stolen a car and crashed following a police pursuit.
In short, Quesnel was a rough-and-ready institution. I was reluctant to introduce my knitted cream vest into this environment.
Sure enough, when I did, my classmates jeered my fashion choice. Some of them — including the student with facial abrasions — offered to pummel me. So I’d hide the vest in a cubbyhole in the mornings, putting it on again just before returning home.
I’ve been lukewarm on knitted garments ever since.
My wife was able to fix the arms of Ollie’s sweater so it looks less like an airplane. Now, he wears it all the time. Sometimes, to humour her, I take Ollie for a walk in my matching sweater.
Hey, at least we’re not wearing matching ponchos.
