My Dream Job

The perfect job is out there for everyone, if only they can find it.  The one born without a sense of smell becomes a skunk researcher, Type A personalities find high-powered jobs with underlings they can persecute, women with a great need to nurture have eighteen children . . .


If I could have found my perfect dream job in this world, I would have responded to an advertisement for an embroiderer who wished to make samplers.  Only samplers.  At the interview, I would have walked up the steps of a rather formal-looking Regency home to find a buzzing foundation at work behind the panelled doors.  The foundation supported and promoted a love for stitched samplers (stay with me).  I would produce my portfolio of cloths for inspection by a middle-aged woman dressed in a navy suit and wearing glasses with the never-lose-me chain around her neck.  She would ask me several questions about the stitches I used, the thread, then stare gravely across at me and say, “This position requires some looseness of stitching, someone who does not have a desire to create perfect stitches in perfect rows.  The stitcher must be willing to try any manner of thread or yarn or synthetic substitute and stitch joyously across the linen.  Color and texture are a major concern.  The successful applicant must be willing to spend years exploring the art of the stitch, but must not create organized samplers with mind-numbing rows of perfectly aligned clones.”

It is at this point in the interview that my fingers begin to twitch, and I am frankly salivating and this somber woman concludes:  ”We have had many applicants for this job, but I believe you have the loose quality we are looking for.”  I take delight in this dubious compliment as the woman removes her glasses, lets them ride on her bosom, rises from her chair and reaches across her desk to shake my hand.

“Now,” she says, “Go forth and explore the world of stitchery.”

Ah, yes!  As I am babbling something about being so happy to be a part of this project, the woman guides me to a door.

“Welcome aboard,” she smiles, pushing the door wide.  Inside is a rainbow that stretches around the walls of a large room, and the rainbow is thread— flosses, woolens, silks, linens, rayons, hemp, even the glitzy metallics and flashy polyesters!  Soft perles, hard-twist rayons, linens plied into every size imaginable—it is enough to make the heart stutter.

I never found that advertisement.  I wonder if that makes me an unfulfilled ex-member of the workforce?