I have a Roomba – which is a small robotic vacuum cleaner. You are supposed to be able to contain it to a single room using little devices called “lighthouses”. I really like this little guy for frequent vacuuming of my kitchen. So, the other day, I turned it on and left it to run around the kitchen while I did some things in my office.
Well, it escaped the kitchen and headed off into the living room – where my two at a time socks using magic loop project was laying beside my recliner (I’d left them there the night before) …AND…the Roomba ate my socks!
I heard this weird little sound coming from the living room and went to investigate – and there I found the Roomba thrashing about entangled in my 40” circular needle and the yarn from one of the socks. (I was so traumatized that I forgot to take a picture.)
After turning the Roomba off, it took me several minutes to remove the yarn from around the various moving parts and then deal with the fact that the circular needle had somehow ended up wrapped around one of the wheels. Eventually, I succeeded in extricating my circular needle – but it was a close call, as I had begun to consider the possibility of having to cut the cable. (WHEW!) Fortunately – one sock was still on the circular needle. The other, however, was laying in the middle of the floor – off the needle and minus its ball of yarn. I tenderly picked up this wounded creature and set it aside to recover from all the trauma.
I discovered that the lighthouse that should have prevented Roomba from going into the living room wasn’t working (dead batteries). Once I replaced the batteries, the darn little thing worked just fine and stayed in the kitchen where I wanted it to be.
Happy News! – I was able to frog the wounded sock back to a point that I knew where I was in the pattern and then pick up the stitches and reconnect the yarn to the sock as I reknit it back to where it had been before it was attacked by the Roomba. It is now back on the same circular needle with its brother.