Sewing circles can be a popular bonding activity amongst elderly women like your grandma, but sometimes they can transform into violent and highly organized armies. It can be hard to tell when your grandma and her sewing friends have turned into a violent group of knitting mercenaries, so here are a few telltale signs to help determine whether or not your grandmother’s sewing circle has become militarized.
1. They’ve made the transition from sewing delicate quilts to heavy-duty vests that appear capable of taking artillery fire: Often times, sewing circles focus their efforts on handcrafting quilts with love. But if your grandmother and her friends have put their quilting aside in favor of making protective vests that look thick enough to stop a high-powered bullet, then there’s a decent possibility they’re prepping for some pretty serious battles down the road. They may claim the bulletproof vests are holiday presents for family members, but even if they’re Christmas-themed Kevlar vests, you should be concerned. Most families don’t need military-grade bulletproof vests; only soldiers and militarized old ladies need that.
2. Their meetings have gone from an hour every Wednesday in the living room to six hours every night in an underground “quilting bunker” your grandma and her friend built themselves: Your grandma may claim she and her friends built the quilting bunker because they want a place to quilt in peace and quiet, but nobody needs a bunker for sewing unless they’re also trying to resist a hostile army of some kind. To figure out if the quilting bunker is something you should be worried about, ask yourself a few questions: Did they bring mostly sewing supplies down into the bunker with them, or did they also bring some weapons and maps of Europe? When you press your ear to the bunker’s bulletproof door, do you mostly hear old ladies laughing and sewing, or do you hear hostages begging for their lives while old ladies yell at them to be quiet so they can focus on knitting a quilt? The answers to these questions may help you determine just how radicalized your nana has become.
3. The language in their embroideries has grown a lot more ominous: If phrases like “Home Sweet Home” have been replaced with ones such as “A New Dawn Will Rise” and “We Have Suffered Long Enough,” then there might be cause for alarm, and you might want to consider providing details about your grandmother’s sewing circle to the Pentagon.
4. On the shopping list your grandma and her friends give you when they send you to Jo-Ann Fabrics for their sewing supplies, they’ve added “AK47 assault rifles” and “real bombs” underneath “yarn” and “beads”: When it comes to determining if your grandma’s sewing circle has transformed into a violent militia, this is one of the big red flags.
5. Everyone in the sewing circle keeps pinching your cheeks and telling you that you’re as handsome as Ted Kaczynski: Being told that you’re a handsome young man by your grandmother’s elderly friends may not be anything new, but if they keep favorably comparing you to the Unabomber, then they’ve probably fully embraced the militia lifestyle, and it might be time to get the FBI to start tracking your grandmother’s sewing circle.
