Now What?

(Rant alert.)

So, I finally found a few minutes to call Alitalia to check whether I could bring my knitting with me on my flight to Italy next month. One guess what the answer is…

NO!

Can somebody tell me how 5-inch bamboo sticks on either end of a plastic cord can possibly be any more dangerous than a pencil? Please? Because I don’t get it.

18 hours of flight time, and probably at least 4-6 hours of waiting-in-the-airport time WITH NO KNITTING. This might very well kill me.

Yes, I know I could read a book, or do crossword puzzles, or watch the in-flight movies. But I want to knit. Maybe I’ll just bring a couple of pencils and a ball of yarn to knit a scarf…when you read about the crazy lady who held up an international flight because she was knitting with pencils, that’ll be me.

(Has anyone managed to bring knitting – bamboo or plastic needles, of course – on Alitalia? Are they just saying no to knitting needles because of those horrid 14-inch metal straight ones?)