My Most Popular Article Ever

Author's preface: I was futzing around in Google Maps a few days ago and stumbled across a section which listed a number of reviews I had written of different locations I had visited while using Google's wildly popular mapping software. There were a grand total of six of these reviews, which, ironically, was exactly six more than I remembered having ever written. The page view stats for each were also listed. To my great surprise one of my reviews, for a small business in the town where my parents live, had 2036 views. This is >1000 more than any other single article I have yet published on the web (~2,500 in 5 years writing regularly or semi regularly). The business is known as A Yarn Crossing. To give just a bit of context, A Yarn Crossing is a store I would never, ever, even consider visiting, were it not for my mom and her interest in knitting, and my need for a last minute Mother's Day gift. I am not sure if I should be happy or terribly depressed that the piece had so much interest. It was intended to be a parody of an actual review, but, given the many comments people made in reply, I am fairly certain most people did not take it as such. The events did happen exactly as I describe them, but my own reactions of dismay and upset are greatly, greatly exaggerated as is the earnestness and seriousness of the tone of the article. In any event, without further ado, but with a totally unnecessary add on introductory sentence intended only to pad my word count so that I can hit the Vocal.media mandatory minimum of six hundred, I present to you A Yarn Crossing, the Google review. Unfortunately, that waste of space and time only brought me to five hundred and thirty five words, necessitating the addition of yet more filler material. Sorry about that. Blame Vocal.media and their terribly, terribly, terribly, stupid policy. Damn, only five hundred and eighty. How the f*&ck hard can it be to write six hundred G*! D&*n words. WTF? Oh, there we go. Phew....

"I went to A Yarn Crossing to purchase a unique gift for my mom for mothers day. She enjoys knitting but I know nothing about it. I was offered no help at all while browsing even though it was crystal clear I had no idea what I was looking for or doing. I picked out some yarn based on color and price, paid, and left. My mom really liked the gift or at least said she did. Later I found out she returned to the store and had the yarn rolled into a ball. Apparently that is a requirement prior to use. Now why on earth would nobody in the store tell me that when I bought it? It was more than obvious I had no freakin clue what I was doing and I even mentioned during checkout that it was a gift for my mom. To not mention this tiny little detail at all? huh? I get that everyone likes their knitting ball a specific tightness or whatever (at least now I do) but could you have explained that to me while I was in the store? At least then I could have given the gift and offered to take my mom back for that part or something. Weak and lame. Yes, you are a specialty store, most people who visit are no doubt experts. You have to be willing to help the uninitiated though too or you look like a bunch of stuck up yarn snobs."